The Rebellion (the Anti-Umbridge Story)
by Gambitized
Summary: Join the D.A. has they first recover from Umbridge's raid on the Room of Requirement, and then make Umbridge's reign of Hogwarts a rather unpleasant one. Chapter 11: Anthony puts up with Terry and Michael's efforts to ruin Umbridge.
1. Seamus (A visit to the owlery)

**A/N: This is a new story I'm hoping to work on. Since it takes place during the fifth year, and I'm planning on every chapter taking a different POV, there should be about 28 chapters in all. That being said, I have don't have that many ideas about what to have all the characters do while rebelling against Umbridge, so if you have any ideas to what a particular character should do, please, please contact me to let me know.**

 **And now, to the story.**

* * *

Seamus broke free of the mass of people streaming out of the Room of Requirement. Spotting Dean through the mess of people running down the corridor, Seamus hurried to follow him, the noise of so many people sprinting echoing off the walls around him. Behind him, he heard someone shouting, then a bang as a spell went off. Not daring to look back, Seamus hurried after Dean, the sounds of people running dampening slightly as people ran off down different corridors. Dean kept running though, so Seamus followed him as closely as he could, praying that Dean knew what he was doing.

Even running as fast as he could, Dean was pulling ahead of him. Seamus was no match for his longer-limbed friend. Though most of the footsteps had faded away, Seamus could still hear at least two pairs of footsteps running after them. Unable to resist the temptation, he risked a glance backwards. To his relief, Seamus only saw Anthony Goldstein (he thought, though it might have been Terry Boot, he wasn't sure) and a little ways behind him, Seamus spotted Neville huffing along, obviously having a hard time keeping up.

Looking ahead again, Seamus saw that Dean had gotten so far ahead, Seamus barely had to time to see him round a corner. Seamus had no idea where Dean was leading them, or if Dean was leading them anywhere. They had already run past the bathrooms nearest to the Room of Requirement (For which Seamus was glad; if they were being chased, he didn't really want to be caught hiding in a bathroom) and Seamus wondered if they were running all the way to the common room. He hoped not, because he thought it might be difficult to explain why a Ravenclaw wanted to come into the Gryffindor common room.

Evidently though, Dean had a plan in mind, because he turned right and hurtled up a staircase so quickly Seamus almost didn't see him. Putting on a burst of speed, Seamus ran up the staircase, emerging in a moonlit circular room with no glass in the windows, and numerous half-asleep owls perching on the rafters, most of them staring at him reproachfully.

Seamus slowed as he reached Dean, who was panting in the middle of the room. Behind him, he could hear Anthony (Or Terry) and Neville pounding up the staircase as well, appearing moments later out of breath and, in Neville's case, with sweat pouring down their faces.

"Did anyone follow us?" asked Dean, still out of breath. When Neville shook his head, too out of breath to answer, Dean went on. "I didn't think we were being followed, but I thought that I better be safe than sorry and ran up here."

Seamus nodded and placed his hands on his knees, more tired than he would have thought now that he knew they weren't being chased. A cool breeze played across his face from the windows, and Seamus supposed that if he hadn't just sprinted to here, he would have found it rather drafty.

"So Seamus," said Dean suddenly, breaking the silence. "Not how you were planning to spend your first meeting with us?"

"Not really, no," said Seamus. "I thought it might involve less running."

"It usually does," panted Neville.

The four of them looked at each other, momentarily out of things to say. After a minute, Seamus walked to the wall and sat down against it, glad for a chance to rest his legs. Following his lead, the others did the same. Seamus leaned his head against the wall, looking up at the owls still peering suspiously in his direction.

Why did you lead us to the Owlery?" asked Neville after another minute, when they all had their breath back.

"It was the first place I thought of." Dean shrugged. "There's nothing suspicious about students sending a letter to their parents at the end of a day."

Even when there are four of us?" asked Terry (or Anthony.)

"So it's an odd coincidence," Dean shrugged again. "It's not unheard of."

"Even when it looks like we're trying to get past Umbridges mail searches?" said Seamus.

"Ah" said Dean, taken back for a moment. Then he gamely rallied. "Er, we're just here visiting our owls?"

"None of us owns any owls" pointed out Neville.

"We all came to visit because we like looking at the owls?" Dean offered desperately.

There was a moment of silence as the pitiable excuse sunk in.

"Seriously," Seamus snorted. "You should stick to the truth, because no one's going to believe your lies."

"Excuse me," said Dean, drawing himself up, the very picture of indignation. "I managed to fool you when you asked what I was doing after the D.A. meetings."

Seamus snorted. "Fool me? You never had me fooled for a second. Not with those horrible excuses.

"Horrible?" repeated Dean. "Horrible? Those where fantastic excuses. You never had any idea I was lying to you."

"Are you kidding me?" said Seamus. He put on a high falsetto. "Hi Seamus, I'm not looking guilty at all." Seamus lowered his voice to a manly pitch. "Hey Dean, I can't help but notice that I couldn't find you after dinner."

Dean started to interrupt, but Seamus's falsetto overpowered his feeble attempt at speech. "Oh, uh, I had to return a book. You know, at the library."

Seamus lowered his pitch, trying to hide a grin, ignoring the sounds of muffled laughter coming from Neville. "Really Dean, you took two hours to return a book?"

Seamus shook his head and returned to his normal voice. "Two hours to return book? Even you couldn't take that long."

Neville turned, his shoulders shaking with restrained laughter, and Terry (Seamus was pretty sure it was Terry) was, clutching his sides, his face working furiously to restrain a smile. Dean still looked mildly offended, but Seamus knew him too well to believe that he was actually offended. Seams grinned at him, and after a moment, Dean let a reluctant grin spread across his face. Seamus chuckled, and within seconds, everyone was laughing much harder then they usually would; once started, it was almost impossible to stop. Several times, they were on the verge of stopping, but then one of them would laugh slightly, and it would set them all off again.

Eventually, after several minutes, the laughing stopped. Not daring to look at each other, they tried to regain their breath, cheeks hurting for from laughing so hard. Above them, the owls hooted and ruffled their wings at the intruders below, clearly annoyed at their laughter. Even as Seamus watched, several flew out of the window, evidently at the end of their tethers of what they could endure. Fighting to keep back his laughter at this sight, Seamus turned back toward the front of the room and immediately felt his urge to keep laughing disappear instantly. Standing in front of the staircase stood a figure, a triumphant grin on his face.

"What do we have here?" said Blaise Zabini, his eyes reflecting the moonlight streaming in through the windows. Dean, Seamus Neville, and Anthony all scrambled to their feet, their expressions alarmed.

The atmosphere, so carefree a moment before, immediately dropped by twenty degrees, landing somewhere near _oh crap._

"Oh," said Terry

"Ah," said Dean,

"er," said Neville

"Shit" said Seamus.

Seamus glanced around the room wildly. Terry and Neville were just standing there, wearing the same panicking expression. Dean was standing on the other side of the room, helplessly looking around the room. Zabini continued to glare at them, not missing any of this. Seamus cleared his throat, this was his time to make an excuse to get them all free, to show Dean how much better he was at lying then he was. Quick, Seamus thought to himself, come up with a good one.

"We were just here to visit the owls" said Seamus, mentally kicking himself for not thinking before he spoke.

"Visit the owls" repeated Zabini skeptically. Across the room, Dean threw him a mingled look of disgust and exasperation.

"That's right," said Neville.

"It's, er, there's something very relaxing about watching them," said Dean, still shooting Seamus a look that clearly said that he wasn't going to let Seamus forget about this. Seamus wished he wouldn't, as it was already hard enough to think quickly without Dean reminding him that he was borrowing a horrible excuse.

"And the four of you just met here, Goldstein?" asked Zabini. (It _was_ Anthony, thought Seamus.)

"Yes," Anthony nodded.

"And you all came because you wanted to visit the pretty owls?" said Zabini disbelievingly.

"Well, I came because I wanted to check in on my friend's owl," said Dean.

"And I wanted some privacy," said Neville quietly.

"And I came because I thought I lost my quill here when I was writing a letter," said Anthony.

"And _I_ wanted to visit the owls," said Seamus innocently.

"And then we all decided to stay and visit with the owls," Dean nodded. "There's nothing like a visit to the Owlery to clear you head.

"Then why are you all covered in sweat?" asked Zabini.

There was a moment of silence where the five of them looked at each other.

"That's not sweat," said Seamus trying not to sound guilty, and at the same time watching Neville wipe off his face with his sleeve.

"I don't believe you," said Zabini. "You're obviously lying. I think that you ran up here to hide from the Umbridge

"No," said Neville defiantly. "We just... it was an owl you see."

"Another owl?" sneered Zabini. "Is that you're your whole story is going to be made of?"

Well, we are in the Owlery," pointed out Dean. "And it's not a story."

Before Zabini could respond to that, they heard new footsteps climbing up the staircase. Pausing their conversation, all five of them turned to face the stairs. A moment later, Pansy Parkinson appeared, out of breath.

Seamus and Dean looked at each other, both realizing just how bad their situation had become.

"Yes?" said Zabini to Pansy

"I thought I might find you here." Pansy said, her eyes traveling around the room, marking who was there. "Professor Umbridge wanted to see everyone who helped to meet her in her office."

"Right now?" asked Zabini.

Pansy shrugged "Umbridge looked like she had something important to tell us."

"Right," Zabini drew out his wand and pointed straight at Seamus. "You heard her, let's start moving."

"Are these from the meeting?" asked Pansy, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the sight of them, ignoring Seamus, Neville and Dean's hands drifting to where their wands were concealed with an indifference Seamus couldn't help but admire.

"No," said Seamus.

"Yes," said Zabini,

"Umbridge says that they get off this time," said Pansy, scowling at Seamus.

"Get off?" said Zabini, his voice dangerous. "They should be punished. I caught them fleeing from the meeting."

"It doesn't matter." Pansy said, scowling harder at Seamus, as if it was his fault Zabini was being stubborn. "Umbridge told me that they all get off. Something's changed. I don't know what happened, but it's big."

Pansy and Zabini looked at each other. Seamus was sure that Zabini was suspicious of this new news; certainly he seemed in no hurry to let his wand down from where it was still pointing at Seamus.

Eventually, after a long moment, Zabini reluctantly lowered his wand. "Fine. What do we do with this lot?"

"We leave them," said Pansy, before turning to look directly at Dean "I don't know how, but somehow, you got lucky this time. Next time, I will get you expelled. This castle's already filthy enough without you here."

With that, Pansy retreated down the stairs, followed by Zabini, who offered once last sneer at Seamus before disappearing from view.

Together, Seamus, Dean, Neville and Anthony waited silently as the Slytherins' footsteps faded away.

"So, that's it?" asked Anthony, looking around at all of them. "We just get off, with no consequences?"

"I guess so," said Seamus, relaxing again for the first time since Zabini had entered "I wonder what happened to make them let us off.

"By all rights we should be expelled right now," Dean muttered. "It definitely wasn't us convincing them that we were innocent.

"What happened to the rest of the D.A.?" Neville wondered aloud, his round face anxious. "Do you think they got caught?"

"I don't know Neville," Seamus frowned. "I hope not. But even if they are, it looks like they won't get in trouble."

Apparently, no one could think of anything to say to this, instead standing their silently, as though waiting for something. It wasn't until Dean glanced at his watch and announced that it was nearing curfew that they started moving. They may have avoided being expelled, but none of them really felt like pushing their luck any further. They walked in silence, only speaking to bid Anthony a goodnight when he split off to make his way back to the Ravenclaw tower. Within a few short minutes, they reached the corridor where the Fat Lady stood.

"Long night, huh guys?" said Dean, sounding tired. "I never thought that we would actually get caught. I mean, we've been doing it for months now without a problem. and this one..." he trailed off.

"On my first meeting too," said Seamus, trying not to sound wistful. "I was just starting to have fun."

"I guess that's the end of Dumbledore's army," said Neville, sounding disappointed.

"I think it's just starting," said Seamus, a grin on his face. He knew that he had no good reason to grin, that he was tired and not thinking as clearly as he should have been, but he couldn't help thinking that this wasn't the end, just the beginning of something else.

Whatever it was, he hoped that would be a whole lot of fun, and possibly life changing. But mostly just a lot of fun.


	2. Terry (The run to the library)

Terry raced down the empty corridor that led to the library, enjoying the sensation that he was being chased more then he probably should have.

At least, he thought that he was being chased. He knew that there was definitely someone behind him, but he couldn't tell if it was a friend or a foe. He had glanced backwards once, and after nearly tripping over his own feet, had decided to focus on running.

Just as his legs were starting to burn, Terry reached the library. Barely slowing as he entered, he made his way toward the back of the library, ignoring the dirty look that Madam Pince threw at him. Finding a table near the back that was unoccupied, Terry flung himself into a chair, snatching up a book that someone else had left there. As he registered the title ( _One thousand ways to cure your sniffles, and other assorted cures)_ Michael darted into the seat opposite him, panting heavily.

"Anyone following us?" asked Terry, trying to sound casual.

Michael shook his head, too out of breath to speak. Behind him, Justin Finch-Fletchy appeared from behind a bookcase, sweating gleaming on his face, but less out of breath then Michael, who was taking deep breaths in an effort to stop panting.

"Anyone following us?" Terry asked again, as Justin pulled out a chair next to him.

"I don't think so, but I was busy trying to catch up to you," replied Justin, scooting his chair closer to the table. "I wasn't aware that you could run that fast."

"Neither was I," said Terry, spotting a tired and slightly sweating looking Padma coming toward their table. "Were we followed Padma?"

"I thought I saw those two thugs, Crabbe and Goyle coming around the corner, but I decided against stopping to look," said Padma, dropping into the seat next to Michael. "But they'll have a job spotting us in this, won't they?"

She was right, thought Terry. The library was crowded with students bent over books, or scribbling away at parchments franticly. Anyone looking for them would be hard pressed to find a way to find them. Terry was willing to bet his- well, he was willing to bet Anthony's right hand that anyone searching for them would be stumped. Michael obviously felt differently.

"You know that you just doomed us to being found, right?" he frowned at her.

"Yes, we're now forever doomed to be found by out pursuers forever," said Terry, letting a slight edge of sarcasm creep into his voice. "Cheer up Mike, We got away."

"You know I hate being called Mike," Michael grumbled. "My parents called me Michael for a reason. And if Padma hadn't just doomed us, you just did."

Terry opened his mouth, and then closed it, admitting to himself that Michael had a point. Before he could speak, Padma gently coughed and nodded toward the entrance.

Looking toward the entrance, Terry saw that Crabbe and Goyle had lumbered in, looking as huge as ever. Terry saw them glance around, before starting toward the back of the library.

"No reason to panic," said Terry, looking mostly at Justin, who was staring at Crabbe and Goyle worryingly. "And stop staring Justin, it's too obvious."

Justin snapped his gaze back to the table in front of him.

"No reason to panic," Terry said again, as Crabbe and Goyle came closer.

Terry quickly pretended to be immersed in reading about how to clear the sniffles as Crabbe and Goyle passed the table where some Hufflepuffs were studying. Padma and Michael had both snatched up books as well, and Terry saw Justin duck under the table, on the pretence that he was tying his shoe. At least, Terry thought Justin was tying his shoe. He didn't really know if it was pretence. Maybe he actually wanted to tie his shoe. Or maybe Justin was just hiding under the table, hoping Crabbe and Goyle couldn't see him, which would be silly, since they would be able to see him even if he was hiding under the table.

"You gonna be in so much trouble," said Crabbe, startling Terry out of his convoluted train of thought. Crabbe and Goyle had made their way to their table, towering over all of them.

"I was right," said Michael.

"Now you can panic," said Terry, half a second later.

This didn't seem to be the response that Crabbe had expected. He glanced at Goyle, who shrugged.

"We found you," Crabbe said, cracking his knuckles menacingly. Across form Terry, Padma winced at the noise.

Terry hesitated for a moment, then decided that the thing to do was play offensive, figuring that with these two goons, keeping them off their balance would be the best thing. Leaping to his feet, he walked over to Goyle, and hugged him.

"Huh?" grunted Goyle. He was so big that Terry could barely wrap his arms around him. Before he could do more than that, Terry released him and rushed over to Crabbe, and did the same thing.

"Huh?" said Crabbe, in the exact same tone as Goyle; Terry stifled a laugh. He stepped back and beamed at the two of them, as if he was overjoyed to see them.

"You certainly did find us, and about time too, we were getting tired of waiting," said Terry, taking another few steps back so that he could see Michael and Padma without turning his head too much. "We were almost about to give up."

"You came just in time," said Michael, nodding wisely. Terry felt a surge of relief that Michael had caught on so quickly.

"Michael here was just about to leave," said Padma, also nodding.

"But now you're here, and there's no real harm done, but I do wish that that you hadn't kept us waiting," said Terry, making himself sound indignant "I have multiple other things that I could have initiated, and there's no point in refuting myself in saying that they were very important things that I could have been doing, but I knew how important it was for you to make yourself heard here."

Crabbe and Goyle glanced at each, before going back to staring at Terry, both slack jawed with puzzlement as they tried to work out what he had said. Terry didn't give them time to recover.

"So now that we're all here, Does anyone want to begin, or shall I?" asked Terry.

"I think you should." said Michael. "After all, you were the one that called us all here."

"Very well, I shall start," said Terry, doing his best to sound grave. "Padma, are you ready to take notes?"

Padma stared at him for a moment, looking puzzled, before nodding. "I'm ready."

"We gather here for the gravest of reasons," began Terry, and immediately, Padma started taking notes. In the absence of a quill, she had resorted to pretending to hold one, and seemed to be writing on an invisible piece of paper. "I found out, not even two hours ago a cause of gravest concern. Not only to me, nor only to the students of our esteemed Ravenclaw House. This is so grave, it threatens the whole castle, and even the school.

"What?" Terry heard Justin mutter under his breath.

Michael nearly let out a snort at the nonsense coming out of Terry's mouth. Terry looked down at him, trying to sound serious.

"This is no laughing matter sir! If we fail to act, the very fabric of this world could come undone. No, the only solution we have, and it is a dire one, I will admit, is to prepare ourselves for a battle so grave, that even the headmaster himself, may his beard grow ever longer, might not be enough to turn the tide!"

Terry tried his best not to grin, as glanced at Crabbe and Goyle, trying to judge how his plan was working. Crabbe had at least managed to close his mouth, though he still looked completely befuddled. Goyle hadn't moved and, if anything, his jaw had dropped more. Transferring his gaze, Terry looked at Justin, who was looking around at all of them as if they were crazy. Which was a pretty fair assessment, Terry thought, as he looked at Michael (Who was now stroking an imaginarily beard), and at Padma, who had continued to write with her nonexistent quill, her face close to the table, her shoulders shaking with the suppressed urge to laugh.

"Sir," said Michael seriously, stroking his beard more vigorously than ever. "You surely seem to think that the time for the gravest of battles to come, but you have yet to say what has led you to this conclusion."

"Hold on," began Justin, with the air of someone trying to inject sense back into a conversation.

"Indeed sir," cried Terry so loudly that the tables nearest to them glanced up. "I will tell the full grave tell, though I doubt that you will find it to your liking. If," he added to Padma, "You find the tale too horrendous to bear, I urge you to cover your ears Madam, for this tale is not for the faint of heart."

"Sir," said Padma evenly, surprisingly straight faced. "It is my scared duty to transcribe this meeting, for if we fail, some record must be kept. I will listen to this grave tale as far as my tolerance will allow."

"As you must madam," nodded Terry, who had used the opportunity while she was speaking to make a rough plan of what he was about to say next. "Though I dare say that if we fail, there may not be a world to come back to.

"This can't be happening," Justin muttered.

"Sir, the tale, else time shall make a fool of us," said Michael, ceasing to stroke his imaginary beard. Terry risked a glance at Crabbe and Goyle while Michael was speaking; the only change was that Crabbe was moving his mouth, as if he was trying to from words, but was too dumbfounded to manage it.

"Indeed sir," said Terry, nodding his head in acknowledgement. "Though I am not eager to discuss it. On my way to the great doors that bar our entrance to the outside world, I made a detour to the basement, seeking, as you all know, to know whether the rumors were true. To my greatest sorrow, they were true. For, in the kitchen of this mighty school, I found food."

"Food?" gasped out Michael, raising both eyebrows in mock surprise.

"Food?" said Justin incredulously.

"Indeed sir," said Terry as solemnly as he could, though he was not very successful, as a smirk broke though. "I hardly need to say that I retreated hastily, for I knew that reinforcements would be need if we were to have any hope of conquering this scourge."

"You did wisely," said Michael, nodding, but Crabbe had finally regained use of his speech after listening to this latest part of Terry's inane tale.

"We saw her running," he pointed at Padma. Beside him, Goyle was still trying to get his mouth closed.

"Of course I was running, there was food in the castle," snapped Padma, sounding much more like her usual self then she had a minute ago. "What did you expect me do?"

"I would have run too," said Justin, looking greatly relieved that Terry had stopped talking nonsense.

"You were running from the secret room on the seventh floor," said Crabbe, cracking his knuckles again, though his soft voice ruined any real affect it might have had.

"That couldn't be me, I was running from food, remember?" said Padma. "It might have been my sister though. You know, she does looks like a bit like me. Except that her nose is much too big for her face. And her eyes are beadier then mine.

"Your identical!" exclaimed Justin, this last turn of events apparently too much for him. "You look exactly the same!"

Padma turned to him with great dignity. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Justin just started at her, too lost for words to speak further.

"But I saw her run into this library," said Crabbe slowly, as if he was trying to reason his way through this. "And she looks like you,"

"Right, but Padma was running from food, not you. And since Padma's sister isn't here, you must have either lost her, or you were never chasing her in the first place." said Terry

"And since I doubt that you could have lost her, you must have been mistaken," said Michael, going back to stroking his imaginary beard again.

The bewildered expression came back to Crabbe's face as Michael finished his sentence. Terry almost felt bad for him. It was disconcerting at the best of times when Terry used his wits to confuse someone, and Crabbe had never been known as the greatest of thinkers.

For the first time since Terry had begun his story, Goyle seemed to focus on one word.

"Mistaken?" he grunted.

"I'm afraid so," said Terry cheerfully. We've been in here waiting for hours for reinforcements to take on the food problem, and Parvati hasn't come in."

Crabbe and Goyle took a moment to register this. Crabbe had screwed up his face, in an effort to work things out better, and Goyle looked like he usually did- which is to say, bemused. After a minute of hard thinking, with the four D.A. members still looking at them, Crabbe started to shuffle off, obviously still uncertain of what he was doing. For a moment, Goyle just stood there as his partner moved away. It wasn't until Michael raised a eyebrow at him that Goyle caught on, and he lumbered to catch up to, joining Crabbe in looking like a pair of small elephants walking away.

Out of respect for them, (and because he was feeling cautious) Terry waited until they were out of the room before he collapsed into his chair, picked up his book, and broke into helpless laughter.

Across from him, Michael had buried his head into his arms, his shoulders shaking. Next to him, Padma had leaned back in her chair, her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as hard as Michael's were. Even Justin managed a smile, though he still seemed a bit puzzled by the whole thing.

"Boy, are they dumb," gasped Terry, setting them all off again.

"How did you think of all that?" asked Justin, once they had calmed down again.

Terry shrugged, "I think I once read something about how a quest happened in a castle. All it took was adding in some different details, and the words practically form themselves."

"With a little quick thinking," added Michael.

"With a bit of quick thinking," agreed Terry, nodding his head in Michael's and Padma's direction. "And I never would have risked such a ridiculous story if it had been someone other than Crabbe and Goyle."

"Everything worked out though," said Padma, grinning at Terry.

"It certainly did," said Terry, feeling quite content.

"And here I thought that all you guys did is study," said Justin, looking more relaxed now that a few minutes had passed, and it was clear that Crabbe and Goyle weren't returning. "I guess I was wrong."

"We do like to relax every now and then," said Michael, leaning forward with his arms on the table. "But we do more than our fair share of studying too."

"Except for Terry, he just lazes around," said Padma.

"Hey," said Terry, trying, and failing to sound indignant. "I do all my best thinking with my eyes closed, that's all."

"So what do we do now?" asked Justin, cutting them off, perhaps sensing that they could go on like this for a while. "I mean," he lowered his voice. "I mean, we can't continue the D.A. anymore, can we?"

They looked at each other for a lengthy moment.

"We'll just have to wait and see what happens," said Michael, breaking the silence. "We weren't caught, but that doesn't mean that others weren't. Let's hope that none of us get expelled, and then we can see what happens."

"No sense worrying about it yet," said Terry. "But your right, now that Umbridge knows about the Room of requirement, we don't have a place to meet. But no matter what happens, I'm going to make sure that the rest of her time here is unpleasant."

"I'm with you," said Padma.

"Me too," said Justin.

"This probably isn't very smart," said Michael, letting out a sigh. "At least wait and see what happened tonight before you start doing anything like… I don't know, like enchanting suits of armor to follow her around, okay?"

"If I have to," said Terry, in a mock whiny voice.

"I just hope that the others are okay," said Justin, who in spite of their reassurances still looked worried.

"Relax," Terry told him. "Most of us got out before the Slytherins even ran into the corridor. Everyone's probably safely hidden by now. We'd be better off if we focus on Michael's idea of getting suits of armor to follow Umbridge around."

"That's not what I said," Michael refuted him immediately.

"I like the concept," said Terry, speaking over Michael. "But I'm thinking maybe if we can get them to sing…"


	3. Lavender (The trip to see Myrtle)

**A/N: I would like to apologize for the amount of time that has gone by since my last post. I meant to get something out last Friday, but it didn't quite work out like a planned. With a bit of luck, I'll have the next one out faster**

 **And I swear, this will be the last one of people running away.**

* * *

They so were being followed.

Despite Parvati's assurances that they weren't, Lavender knew that there had to be at least three people chasing them. Lavender could tell by the noise of their footsteps, a gut feeling, and their shouts echoing off the walls.

Also, she had turned and looked over her shoulder a few minutes earlier.

Lavender really hoped that their pursuers would give up soon. Her breath was coming in gasps, her legs were begging her for a rest, and her heart was beating so fast that Lavender thought that it might give up. Hot on her heels, Parvati didn't sound much better. Lavender knew that would have to find some place to hide; they couldn't keep going like this for much longer.

"Lavender," gasped Parvati suddenly, breaking up the steady rhythm of gasps that Lavender had heard for the past couple minutes. "In here."

Lavender skidded to a halt, glancing back at Parvati, who was already halfway through the door that led to the girl's toilets.

"Parvati, we can't go in there, that's where Myrtle lives," said Lavender, hurrying over nonetheless.

"Would you rather get caught, or talk to Myrtle?" hissed Parvati, her voice lowered, glancing toward the end of the corridor, where the sound of their chasers could be heard thundering toward them.

Lavender hesitated, considering the question carefully.

"Seriously?" asked Parvati, her voice incredulous. When Lavender didn't answer, she reached out and yanked in her into the room, shutting the door quietly behind them. Lavender turned her back on the door, fighting the instinct inside her that was telling her to leave the bathroom before it was too late.

The bathroom was unchanged from when they had last visited it four years ago, with the notable exception that everything was still dry this time, and that there was no sign of Myrtle in the room.

On the other side of the door, she heard the three Slytherins ran past, not even hesitating at the door. The noise they were making quickly faded as they got further away.

"See," said Parvati, looking relieved. "I told you that this was a good idea."

"I know," said Lavender, and some of the tension she had been holding trickled away. "But I'm still worried about Myrtle showing up again."

Parvati nodded, casting around for any sign of the ghost. "Yeah, that probably wouldn't end well.

"It's not like I did anything to annoy her either," said Lavender, eyeing the stall where Myrtle lived nervously. Though four years had passed, the memory of Myrtle's overreaction would never leave Lavender, no matter how long she lived.

"You only told her she should lose some weight," Parvati rolled her eyes. "I don't know why that would offend her at all."

"How was I supposed to know that ghost couldn't lose weight," Lavender giggle slightly. "It was an honest mistake."

"How could you not know that," said Parvati, grinning slightly. " _Everyone_ knows that."

"My mom was always scared of ghosts, so we didn't really talk about them much," said Lavender, then looked around and adding in an undertone, "and besides, _it's_ true."

Instantly, there was loud, horribly screechy sob as Moaning Myrtle herself flew up from her usual stall at the end, cutting Parvati off mid-giggle. Water splashed all over them, the taps, and the floor, so they were standing in ankle deep water.

"Speaking of the devil," said Parvati, in a falsely cheery voice, throwing a worried look at Lavender.

"Oh, it's you two," said Myrtle, gloomily. "Talking behind my back _again,"_

"No, Myrtle," said Lavender quickly, knowing that it was best to interrupt her before she could build up too much steam. "We were just, um, saying how nice you look these days."

"How I look," howled Myrtle, much louder then Lavender liked. "How I look! As _if._ I heard you talking about how fat I looked."

"No. I mean, I would _never_ be so tactless," said Lavender, slightly hurt by this unfair accusation. "I mean, yes, you could be slimmer-"

"A tiny, itsy-bitsy bit slimmer," put in Parvati.

But you look fine now," finished Lavender.

Myrtle gave a dramatic sob so loud that Lavender was sure half the castle could hear. "I get it, I understand now. Just because I'm _dead,_ it means that everyone can insult me, because there's _no_ way that I can still have feelings."

"Excuse me," said Lavender, drawing herself up. "I know perfectly well that you have feelings, but I have feelings too, and I'm sorry that _your_ feelings were hurt, but it's the truth. You can hardly blame me for that. And besides, _you're_ the one who attacked me last time."

"Lavender," said Parvati warningly, but Lavender plowed on.

'It's all your fault that I can never use any bathroom on the first floor. You know, I was perfectly happy to, until I visited here.

" _M_ yfault," huffed Myrtle. "I was here long before you were. And you called me fat."

"I did _not_ call you fat," said Lavender.

"You did too," said Myrtle, acting as though Lavender's denial was the worst thing in the world and sniffing tragically. "I _heard_ you."

"Haven't we just had this conversation?" asked Parvati, twisting a bangle around her wrist idly, her dark eyes moving from Lavender, who knew she looked defiant, and Myrtle, who was too busy giving howl of outrage and making a show of wiping her eyes on her robes to notice.

" _Really_ ," said Lavender exasperatedly, rolling her eyes at this latest show of "tragic misunderstanding."

A new voice from outside the door joined conversation. "Do you hear something in there?"

Lavender and Parvati looked at each other, their faces stricken. Myrtle gave another howl, louder than before, pausing only to blow her nose.

"Myrtle, shut up," hissed Parvati. Lavender didn't expect this to work, and unsurprisingly, Myrtle didn't even pause in her wailing.

"I definitely heard something," said a new voice, female, the excitement in it easily heard even over Myrtle.

"In here," said Lavender, crossing the room and wrenching open a door to a stall and speaking in a undertone so that she wouldn't be heard, though she doubt anything would be heard with Myrtle still weeping loudly. "Parvati, quick!"

The door handle was being turned as Parvati rushed toward the stall, and they were only saved from being discovered by luck, as the door suddenly stopped being turned, and different voice, this one male, exclaimed, "I can't go in there, it's a girls toilets!"

Parvati squeezed past Lavender as Myrtle abruptly stopped her moaning, looking interestedly at the door, seemingly only now noticing that there were more people outside her bathroom.

"Myrtle," whispered Lavender, waving her arm to get the ghost's attention. "Please, please don't tell them we're in here."

Lavender had one last glimpse of Myrtle's face before she swung the stall door shut, and she was not reassured by what she saw. Myrtle, at least in comparison her usual glumness, seemed positively radiant as she glared at Lavender. Lavender wasn't sure what that meant, but was sure that it didn't foretell anything good for them.

"C'mon you big twit," said one of the female voices loudly, and Lavender could hear the door flying open, and the sound of people moving through the water-covered floor.

"You, ghost," came the sneering, slightly reedy voice of the male — Lavender thought that it might have been the Nott kid, from Slytherins, — but one of the female voices quickly cut him off.

"Myrtle, right? Has anyone come through here recently?"

"Oh, maybe," whimpered Myrtle. "I was just sobbing in my toilet just now, and I _thought_ I might have heard someone."

"Who was it?" asked the other female voice eagerly, and Lavender exchanged a glance with Parvati; now that there wasn't a door between them, she could clearly recognize the voice of Millicent Bolstrode. "Who came in here?"

"I thought I heard two girls," said Myrtle, and though the tone was the same as her usual dejection filled one, Lavender thought she could hear the a happier note beneath it, as though Myrtle was enjoying keeping Lavender and Parvati in suspense.

"Which stall?" asked Millicent and Nott at the same time.

"Do you see any legs?" asked the other female voice. Quickly, Parvati climbed up on top of the toilet, crouching slightly so that she couldn't be seen over the top of the stall. Lavender reached up and, taking Parvati's proffered hand, hoisted herself up, settling in a slightly hazardously position on the wet toilet seat. From her new vantage point, Lavender could look down into the toilet itself, noticing for the first time just how much extra water Myrtle managed to fill these toilets, with her sulking.

"I don't see any," reported Nott, crashing through the water, and Lavender sent out a quiet prayer of thanks for him starting on the opposite end of the bathroom. "Not a pair of legs anywhere."

"Which stall?" asked Millicent, not sounding disappointed. If anything, she sounded more eager than before, like this was only a setback. . "Which stall are they in?"

"Well, let me think," Myrtle sighed, floating upward, so Lavender could see her. For someone who sounded so glum, her expression was quite cheerful. When she caught sight of the two witches perched precariously on the toilet, her face broke into the first smile that Lavender had ever seen.

Five pairs of eyes followed Myrtle, as she floated toward the far end of the bathroom, peering down into the first stall.

"Nobody's in this one," she said, quite cheerfully.

"You're going to look in every single one?" asked Millicent in disbelief.

"Well, I _think_ that they are in this one," said Myrtle, floating so that she was over the next one on line. "But I guess not."

"I could do this faster," grumbled Nott. "We don't even need the ghost."

"Don't say th—" began the second female voice, but it was too late; Myrtle had heard. With a wail, she started to sob loudly, floating to the top of the room.

"Don't. Say. Anything." said the female voice. Lavender felt her eyebrow furrowing as she tried to remember where she had heard that voice before.

"But," began Millicent. Before she could get any further, the second female voice cut her off.

"Not. One. Word. Let me handle this."

" _You_ don't need me," gasped Myrtle, pearly tears streaming down her face. " _You_ just want to tease me like everyone else."

"No, no, that's not what he meant," said the second female voice soothingly. Lavender almost made a loud exclamation in triumphant as she recognized it as Tracy Davis. Fortunately, she remembered that this wasn't the time for yelling, and instead resolved to tell Parvati later.

"He wants to leave," said Myrtle, pouting. " _He_ doesn't even know my name."

"I know," said Tracy sympathetically. "But do you know what he why he really came in here?"

"Why?" said Myrtle, without enthusiasm.

"Well," said Tracy, lowering her voice, so that Lavender had to strain to hear her. " _I_ heard that he wants to know you died."

"You do?" said Myrtle, obviously flattered.

"Wha—," began Nott, before letting out a slight grunt, and Lavender guessed that someone had elbowed him in the ribs. A moment of silence filled the room, then "uh, yeah, I do."

'It was absolutely _awful_ ," said Myrtle happily. "I was sitting right in the stall, down at the end when—"

Lavender groaned silently, hoping that Myrtle would hurry up and tell the story. For one thing, her legs were getting tired of crouching. Even through the pain shooting up from her legs, Lavender could appreciate just how cunning Tracy Davis had been to head off Myrtle, and felt a little grudging respect for her.

"Olive Hornby had teased me _dreadfully_ for my glasses," prattled on Myrtle, oblivious to Lavender's discomfort. Looking around for something to distract her, Lavender noticed Parvati had one hand in her pocket, slowly pulling out her wand.

Lavender reached up and gently nudged Parvati, raising an eyebrow in.

Parvati finished pulling out her wand, nodding toward the ghost and mouthing "for Myrtle"

Lavender shook her head, mouthing "It's not going to do anything."

Parvati looked at her blankly for a moment, before shrugging, obviously not understanding.

"Anyway, I ran in here, since Olive wouldn't leave me alone in my dormitory," Myrtle continued her story, completely unaware of the non-verbal conversation taking place just feet from her. Lavender took a moment wonder at the Slytherin's patience, before turning her attention back to Parvati.

Parvati was still staring at her, a bemused look on her face. Lavender slowly mouthed the words "It is not going to do anything."

Lavender sighed silently as Parvati shrugged again, mouthing "is is not. what?"

Lavender rolled her eyes, raising her eyebrows trying to say "really?"

Parvati raised her eyebrows right back, and half shrugged, a typical expression when someone was trying to say "what?"

"And that's when I saw it," said Myrtle dramatically. "Two, great, big eyes."

Lavender shot an exasperated look at Parvati, before very slowly and carefully mouthed the words, "going to do anything,"

Parvati thought for a moment, then shook her head, mouthing, "It's not going to what?"

"Do anything," Lavender completed the sentence as empathetically as possible while still remaining silent. Parvati just looked more puzzled, so Lavender reached up and grabbed her wand, yanking out of her surprised gasp.

"And that's how I died," sighed Myrtle, sounding almost content as she floating upward, drawing Lavender's attention. Parvati used the distraction to grab at her wand, almost yanking it out of Lavender's grasp before Lavender even noticed it. A silent game of tug of war ensued, made only more dangerous by them both standing on a wet toilet.

"Can we search yet?" whispered Nott, though he was still clearly audible in the quiet room.

"What's that?" said Myrtle, abruptly reverting to her usual attitude.

"He's just eager to catch the people who ran in here, that's all," said the female voice. "A little overeager."

At the mention Lavender and Parvati, Myrtle suddenly brightened again, as though the thought of Lavender and Parvati getting caught warmed her heart. Floating back toward the third stall, she chirped, "This one's empty too."

Lavender looked at Parvati. Parvati was wearing a slightly panicked expression, but at last managed to yank it out of Lavender's hand. Lavender grabbed her arm as she made to aim.

"No one in this one either," said Myrtle's voice, temporarily out of sight again as she peered into another stall."

Lavender heard the water ripple as the three Slytherins outside the stall shifted slightly. Parvati was throwing Lavender a questioning look. Lavender wished that she could just tell Parvati to give it up, but she contented herself with a warning look and a shaking of her head.

Myrtle came back into view as she looked into the next stall, only three stalls where Lavender and Parvati where crouching on the toilet.

"There's someone in here," Myrtle shrieked suddenly, making Lavender jump and Parvati flinch so badly that she shot a few sparks into the stall wall. Luckily, the Slytherins running forward were so focused on Myrtle that they missed both the faint light of the sparks and the sound of Lavender's knee hitting the wall.

Oh, wait, never mind," said Myrtle, looking gleeful she had caused such a reaction. The three Slytherins, muttering to themselves, sloshed back to where they had been before. Still smiling to herself, Myrtle floated into view, now only two stalls from view.

"I don't see anyone in there," announced Myrtle, her eyes traveling over to Lavender and Parvati. Lavender threw her a pleading look, rubbing her knee where it had hit the stall wall with one hand. Beside her, Parvati clenched her hands together, silently begging for Myrtle to leave them alone.

"Nothing here," called Myrtle, sounding happier by the minute. Her eyes never left Lavender, who was now shaking her head, giving Myrtle the puppy eye treatment.

Myrtle cheerfully ignored this, gliding over to their stall, looking down on Parvati, who was begging more empathetically than ever, and looking very odd with a wand sticking out of her clenched hands. The ghost opened her mouth, and Lavender knew that she was going to rat them out. A plan, one of the most desperate Lavender had ever come up with, came to mind, no doubt borne out of the hopelessness of the situation.

"Myrtle," hissed Lavender, so quietly she wasn't sure the ghost could hear her. "Your fat."

With the loudest shriek yet, Myrtle dived through Lavender, into the toilet. Lavender gasped loudly as Myrtle flew through her, feeling as though she had just been thrust into a cold shower. The feeling was only amplified as Myrtle splashed into the toilet, throwing water all over Lavender, Parvati, and well over the stall door, flooding most of the bathroom. With cries of rage, the three Slytherins blundered toward the door, cursing loudly.

"She tricked us," yelled Nott, and Lavender heard him crash against the door; it slammed against the wall with a resounding crash. "She was going to do that all along,"

"We had to make sure, didn't we though," said Tracy, sounding rather disgruntled herself.

Nott's reply was lost as he closed the door with much more force then he need to. As though this had been a cue for them, Lavender and Parvati both came to life. Lavender gasped again, then hopped down to the ground, her robes completely soaked. Behind Lavender, Parvati started to splutter and cough, wiping water off her face.

Lavender groaned softly as she straitened her legs at last; she had been holding it much too long. She still felt cold, as though a part of Myrtle was still in here. Staggering to the stall door, she pushed it open and walked splashily to the middle of the room, deeply thankful that Myrtle was finally gone.

"I've always wondered how she manages to get so much water everywhere" said Parvati lightly, following her. Lavender turned to get a good look at her. Her friend looked horrible; her long black hair was plastered to her back, and her makeup had smudge spectacularly. Lavender knew that she couldn't look any better.

"At least we got out, didn't we?" said Lavender, shivering slightly and squeezing as much water as she could out of one of her sleeves.

"What were you trying to tell me?" asked Parvati, pointing her wand at Lavender and muttering under her breath. Lavender's robes suddenly warmed up though they remained wet. "That better?"

"Loads," said Lavender. "I was trying to tell you that it wasn't going to do anything."

"Oh," said Parvati, comprehension dawning on her face. " _That's_ what you were trying to say."

Lavender just sighed, as the sound of Myrtle sobbing filled the room once more. "Let's get out of here.

"Yeah," agreed Parvati, splashing her way toward the door.

Wet and bedraggled, the two witches walked out into the corridor, closing the door after them.

'Let's hope no one sees us like this," said Lavender, as they started walking down the corridor. Parvati nodded silently.

"And at least we didn't get caught," said Parvati after a while. "That was great thinking on your part,"

"I know," said Lavender, proudly. "Though that was a little too close," she added quickly

"It was kind of fun though," said Parvati, smiling.

"Yes it was," admitted Lavender, a grin spreading over her face. "We need to do something like that again.

"Not the exact same thing," said Parvati immediately.

"All right, not the same one," allowed Lavender. "But something like that."

"All right," said Parvati, and still grinning slightly, the two soaking wet witches mounted the marble staircase, already planning what they could do to get Millicent back for almost catching them.

* * *

 **A/N: I'll admit, I'm not sure that I did justice to Lavender's character, so I would appreciate if any of you guys could tell me what you thought. After all, we'll probably be seeing more of her, even if it's not from her point of view.**

 **And if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading.**


	4. Katie (A date with a firework)

"Did you see the notice—"

"That's right, Dumbledore's gone-"

" _I_ heard that Fudge tried to—"

No matter where Katie went, there was only one topic of conversation, and that was Umbridge replacing Dumbledore as headmaster of Hogwarts. In the corridors, over breakfast, even in the loo, she couldn't help but over hear people telling their version of what had happened last night. Katie had by now heard some truly absurd versions, though the best had come from a Ravenclaw fourth year (who apparently had it from a fifth year) who had told a very long winded tale of Dumbledore beating back a army of aurors using nothing half a melted candle, and a over sized teddy bear.

Katie, Alicia, and Angelina had gotten a good laugh at of that last one.

Of course, they, with most of the Gryffindor D.A. members, had heard the true story from Harry when he had finally come back in, looking much more weary then he had just a few hours ago. The rest of the school however, had not yet been told the full story, so Katie was frankly surprised that they knew that Fudge, Umbridge, two aurors, and Percy Weasley had been involved.

The teachers seemed less than happy with Umbridge taking over; indeed, Sprout had been much less cheerful than usual when Katie entered the greenhouses, and almost snapped at poor Leanne when she had sent the Snargaluff pod they had been working with right through the ceiling of the greenhouses.

Umbridge, on the other hand, appeared quite satisfied with herself when she entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Katie had hoped that now that she was headmistress, she would stop teaching, but if course, no such thing had happened.

At long last however, just when Katie felt that the urge to scream, the bell rang and Umbrdge was forced to release them to lunch. Relieved that the lesson was finally over, Katie started walking down toward the great hall. Halfway down the stairs, she saw Fred and George going up, looking slightly shifty, and George even winked at her. Grinning to themselves, they kept walking up the stairs. Katie, with a feeling the twins were up to something that was going to get them into trouble, continued walking down the stairs, her hunger outweighing her curiosity to see what they were planning.

A minute or two later however, and Katie was still wondering what they going to do and was very much wishing that she had followed then when she entered the great hall and made her way to a seat next to Alicia.

"What do you reckon they are up to?" asked Katie, nudging Alicia when she was done filling her bowl with soup.

"Huh?" grunted Alicia, her mouth full. Swallowing, she swung her head toward Katie, arching her eyebrow. "Who?"

"Fred and George," said Katie. "I'm telling you, that's the look of someone that's just begging to get into trouble."

"You should have mentioned their names in the first place," said Alicia severely. "But no, I didn't notice them looking mischievous".

"Who? Fred and George?" said Angelina, sitting down on Katie's other side. "That's how they normally look."

"Okay, yes," admitted Katie. "But they looked like they were planning something more just now."

"C'mon, even they wouldn't dare to something the first day of Umbridge becoming headmistress," said Alicia. "It would just be begging for expulsion."

"Maybe they don't care anymore," said Angelina thoughtfully. "They've never really cared their classes, did they?"

"And let's be honest, it's _Fred and George_ ," said Katie, emphasizing their names. "Of course they're going to make trouble, it's just a question when."

"Yes, they're going to do something," said Alicia, shrugging her shoulders. "That's a foregone conclusion. I just don't think that they're going to do anything big today."

"C'mon," badgered Angelina playfully. "Think about it. They respected Dumbledore enough to lay off sometimes, but now…"

She sighed and left her sentence hang.

"With Umbridge here, they won't," said Katie, rushing forward to complete her sentence a few moments too late. When Angelina turned to her, a amused look on her face, Katie could only shrug, knowing that she deserved that look

Alicia just rolled her eyes, shaking her head wearily back and forth. "It doesn't matter what you say, I still don't think that they're doing anything today."

"yes they will," said Katie, feeling confident that she could win this argument.

"Nah," said Alicia, "Not yet. They wouldn't dare. Anyway, what would they do? They haven't had enough time yet to plan anything yet.

Angelina lifted her hands up, speaking in a loud and dramatic voice that made Katie snort into her soup, "Oh mighty Fred and George, masters of tricks, show your unbeliever your incredible daring!"

And, with incredible timing that Katie would wonder about for years to come, her wish was granted.

BOOM! An explosion rang through the castle, shaking the very floor. Katie flinched so badly that she sent her soup bowl across the table, spilling soup all over the white table cloth. For a moment, there was a shocked silence over the entire hall.

"I didn't do that, did I?" asked Angelina in a small voice, breaking the silence. Her quip had broken the spell; suddenly everyone was jumping up and yelling, pointing and waving every which way, while the teachers descended in a completely futile attempt to restore order.

"C'mon," said Katie, jumping to her feet and yelling loudly to be heard over the roar of the crowd. "Let's go and see what Fred and George did."

Angelina jumped to her feet as well, a large grin spreading across her face. Alicia, a small smile on her face as well, followed, bellowing, "You, know, Technically, We don't know that's Fred and George who did this."

"Who else could it be?" yelled Katie, fighting her way through the crowd. With some time, and a lot of effort, the three of them managed to get through the doors, joining the crowd that was streaming out in the entrance hall.

To her very great disappointment, Katie could not immediately find the source of the commotion. Everything looked like it usually did. The portraits had not suddenly changed color, there was nothing on the floor, there was no headless Umbridge running around screaming (Katie doubted the last one could happen, but she figured she could always dream.) Now that the crowd could all see what had happened, or rather, the lack of what happened, they quieted down.

"I thought it would be more exciting," Katie heard one first year telling another.

"That was dramatic," said a fifth year coolly.

Katie turned to Angelina and Alicia, both who looked as disappointed as she felt. Fred and George and let her down for the first time.

"Maybe that's the joke," said Angelina half-heartily. "That there is no joke."

And then, out of nowhere, the crowd suddenly erupted again. Turning back, Katie let out gasp.

At least dozen of the biggest, nosiest fireworks she had ever seen were racing through the air. There was massive dragons, banging loudly, Rockets where shooting everywhere, making people duck to avoid having their head taken off, some sparkler's had taken it on themselves to right some extremely rude words in midair, and a truly enormous amount of firecrackers had entered the hall and were exploding like small bombs everywhere they looked.

"There's more coming from over there!" yelled Lee Jordan, pointing up at the marble staircase.

"They're escaping outside!" bellowed McLaggen. Sure enough, some of the fireworks had taken advantage of the open door and make a break for the outside. Everywhere Katie turned, there were people yelling and pointing every which way. More bangs were issuing from the fireworks, drowning out most of what could be heard. The crowd thundered its approval of the fireworks, screaming in delight as more came flying down the stairs.

A sudden upsurge of noise made Katie wrench her eyes to where the crowd was pointing. It was easy to see what the crowd had started yelling at. Umbridge had entered the scene, and was running down the stairs as fast as her short legs could carry her, wand her hand and ash on her face, screaming something that could not be heard over the roar of fireworks. Filch was following her, carrying a still smoldering handle of a broomstick.

With a flick of her wrist, Umbridge shot what Katie recognized from her time with the D.A. as a fully body bind at a dragon. For a moment, it seemed to work; the dragon froze. It gave Umbridge just enough time to think that it might work, then gave the loudest bang yet and shot straight at Umbridge, who barely managed to avoid getting hit.

Umbridge got back to her feet, shouting something that Katie was quite sure was something that shouldn't come out of a teacher's mouth. With a snarl, she waved her wand again, and this time, a firecracker started to fade from sight, then suddenly, with a bright flash, there were ten more.

The crowd cheered at this lack of process, as Umbridge looked aghast at what she had done. Her broad face blotchy with anger, she pointed her wand at her throat and burst out, her voice magically amplified.

"GET TO YOUR CLASSES NOW!

With much disappointment on their faces, the crowd broke up hastily, most of them walking toward the stairs, where their next classes where. A few students pushed their way back into the great hall, and Katie made to follow them, when Angelina grabbed her arm and motioned to follow her. Slightly nonplussed, Katie let herself be led away.

Katie, Angelina, and Alicia joined the crowd pressing up the stairs, Umbridge still shouting jinxes at the fireworks which all reacted in various and exiting ways, which made the crowd turn and look, so that going up the stairs was excessively slow.

Katie, Alicia, and Angelina had made it part way off the stairs so that they were very near Filch, who was cradling a very shell-choked Mrs. Norris, When Umbridge shouted " _Impedimenta_!" Turning around to see what new effect this would cause, the three of them saw the jinx hit the firework, which slowed down and lost most of its energy, before slowly running into a wall and bursting into a cloud of sparks.

There was a great murmur of disappointment at this, as Umbride, looking gleeful starting jinxing every firework within range. Katie sighed, the joyful feeling that had come with the fireworks diminishing slightly. Angelina however only hurried forward, a gleam in her eye.

"I was hoping that she wouldn't be able to figure out how to stop them," said Katie, dodging as a slightly drunk looking firecracker exploded with a small pop over her head. "At least it'll take her a while to get rid of them all.

"And at least we don't have class," Alicia said, watching as Umbridge hit one of the dragons with the jinx; it slowly glided out into the grounds, where it faded into a trail of sparks that was quickly extinguished by the wind. "It could be worse."

Katie nodded, still watching Angelina as she climbed up the stairs. Something in the gleam of hers made Katie think of the wink George had thrown her. Angelina certainly wasn't acting as though anything was amiss, but Katie couldn't shake the feeling that she was planning something.

"Down here," said Angelina suddenly, turning down the mostly vacant second floor corridor. Looking nonplussed, Alicia followed and Kate trotted after, the feeling that Angelina was planning something only increasing as the quickly made their way down.

"Angelina," said Alicia, shaking her head and puzzled. "What are we —"

"In here" said Angelina, ducking into an empty classroom. "Quickly" she added, looking up and down the corridor.

Still looking bewildered, Alicia walked into the classroom, and Katie followed. Angelina, with one last sweep of the corridor, closed the door behind them and sat down on the closest desk.

"We can't let Umbridge get all the fireworks," said Angelina without preamble. "Fred and George put too much work into making those damn things for it all to go to waste."

"You want us to stun Umbridge?" asked Katie hopefully.

"Actually," said Angelina, frowning at her, "I was more thinking along the eyes that we could multiply them."

"You mean make more," said Alicia. "How? It took the Weasley twins months to make those."

"Did you see what happened when Umbridge tried to Vanish them?" asked Angelina, leaning back on the desk. "They multiplied."

"And you want us to do the same thing," said Katie, understanding dawning on her. "We can totally do that."

"Are you sure?" said Alicia. "If we get caught…"

"So we'll be careful," shrugged Angelina. "Anything to make more trouble for Umbridge."

"C'mon Alicia," wheedled Katie. 'It'll be fun."

Alicia let out a sigh, shaking her head. "You two are going to be the death of me, you know that?"

'You'll do it?" asked Angelina, a grinning spreading across her face.

"Fine," Alicia said, sighing again. "I guess that I now I've started joining secret societies, breaking few more rules can't hurt."

"Great," said Katie enthusiastically. "Let's go find some fireworks!"

The three of them strode out, Alicia closing the door behind them and started searching for fireworks to Vanish. Whether it was due to Angelina's sixth since, good fortune, or that fact that the firecrackers were really loud, they found some almost as soon as they set out.

Katie suspected that it was the third one; the firecrackers were _really_ loud.

They turned the corner and found themselves starting at corridor with a massive amount of fireworks at it already. At second glance, Katie realized that there were only three of them. The relative tight confines of the corridor made it seem like there were many more.

"Ready?" Katie asked the other two. When the nodded, she raised her wand, and, with a flick, she "Vanished" the dragon gliding along the corridor. With a loud POP! The dragon glowed and suddenly burst into ten more dragons, filling the corridor with dragons. Next to those, there were suddenly ten more firecrackers, positively filling the hall with the sound of their banging. Squinting through the mass of sparks (Alicia had hit a sparkler, so that there were several swearwords blocking her view) Katie realized that that there was slight flaw in their plan: The fireworks could only escape in two directions; toward the other end of the hall, and toward them.

"Oh dear," she muttered to herself, unheard by the other's in all the commotion. One of the dragons seemed to have heard her though; Katie could have sworn it was grinning at her. As its brothers banged into walls and belched fire and flew toward down the far end of the corridor, this dragon, banged loudly once, then starting flying toward them, intent upon getting them.

Katie stumbled backwards. She dully noticed Alicia and Angelina pause halfway through congratulating themselves. Though Katie couldn't see their faces, she was sure that they too had realized how much of a dilemma they were in.

"RUN!" yelled Angelina, bolting down the corridor, Alicia speedily legging it after her. Katie only paused long enough for to register that another dragon had started after the first, before fleeing the scene in a kind horrified trance. Everything seemed to slow down. Katie saw Alicia cast a terrified glance, her mouth opened in a expression that would Katie would ordinarily think was hilarious, but right now spurned her on to greater speeds.

"UP AHEAD," yelled Alicia, pointing at one of the doors that led to the same classroom they had so recently left, her hand shaking wildly as she ran. Katie could barely hear her over the dragons behind her. Though she didn't think that the sparks the dragons were comprised of would hurt her much, it didn't help stop the pictures coming to mind of her being squished by a sparking dragon.

Angelina burst through the door ahead, Alicia diving in right after her. Katie sprinted down the corridor, praying with all her might that she would make it…

The dragon was almost touching, she could feel the heat coming from it…

The classroom was so close now…

Katie could actually see the sparks flying past her as the dragon snorted… It was going to be too close… She wasn't going to make it.

And then, with one last effort, Katie jumped through the doorway, turning in midair to watch as the dragon soared past the doorway. It banged angrily as it passed, snorting in disappointment.

Gasping for breath, Katie rolled over onto her side, clutching a stitch in her ribs. After a minute, when her heart rate had dropped back to beating fast, she turned over to find that the other two were staring at her.

'What?" said Katie, climbing to her feet.

They looked at each other, and then burst out laughing; Katie couldn't help but feel slightly hurt.

"Nothing," gasped Angelina, snorting in an undignified manner. When Katie glared at her, she positively doubled over in laughter, holding herself up on a desk.

" _What?"_ asked Katie, starting to get annoyed now.

"You," Alicia wheezed, clutching her sides. "Your face."

"What? Did it get burned?" Katie reached up for her face, frantically feeling it. Angelina, who had just managed to support her own wait, fell to the floor, she was laughing so hard.

"No, no," gasped Alicia. "You were acting like it was so dramatic, that's all."

"I almost died just now," said Katie forcefully, as Angelina continued to roll on the floor.

"Your right, It's not funny," said Alicia. "It's really not," she added, prodding Angelina with her toe.

"Your face," snorted Angelina. "That jump through the doorway. Your expression. You know that a firework can't actually kill you, right?"

"I know," admitted Katie in a small voice. At this, Angelina doubled over again, but Alicia had stood up straight.

"That," said Alicia, "Was a lot of fun."

"You bet it was," said Angelina. Katie only nodded her mind still on the dragon.

"Let's go do it again," said Alicia, marching toward the door. "You guys coming?"

Angelina was back on her feet very quickly for someone who had just been rolling on the floor.

"And you didn't want to do this," she called, as she jogged through the door after Alicia, leaving Katie sitting on the floor by herself.

Shaking her head, Katie followed, listening to Angelina and Alicia eagerly discussing where they should go next.

And so, the three of them wandered around the school making the fireworks multiply, secure in the knowledge that they were causing Umbridge massive amounts of trouble. At last, when they were sweaty, tired, ash covered, and the bell had rang to signal that it was time for them to go to classes, they stopped, satisfied that the amount of fireworks they had "helped" would keep their new headmistress busy for the rest of the day.

And at the end of it, anything that kept Umbridge unhappy was enough of a reason for Katie to risk life and detention.

.


	5. Ernie(A way to get Anti-Umbridge creams)

**A/N I would like to apologize deeply, humbly and sincerely about how long this took to get out to you guys. Between a whole bunch of perfectly reasonable excuses and the good old spirit of Christmas procrastination, it's taken a while.**

* * *

Ernie resisted clasped his hands behind his back, determined to remain calm so as not to put his friends on edge. Or, as was the case for Justin, more on edge.

Are you sure they said to meet them here?"asked Justin, looking around the deserted corridor once again.

"That's what they said," Hannah spoke up, nervously playing with her wand. "Or at least, that's what I heard them say."

"That's certainly what they said," agreed Susan Bones cheerfully, leaning against a statue of a witch with a humpbacked and one eye. Susan grinned and imitating it by shutting one eye and squinting around at them before speaking again.. "Unless they were lying to us."

Personally, I believe they're just a bit late," said Ernie, trying to calm Hannah down.

"Really?" asked Hannah, polishing her wand on her robes; a few sparks shot out. "They were on time for all the D.A. meetings…"

"Well, they're not particularly trustworthy," said Justin. "They're probably having a good laugh at us right now while their eating their dinner,"

"You think so?" said Hannah.

"Nah," said Susan. "They wouldn't do that."

"Are you sure?" said Justin, craning his neck to look down the end of the corridor yet again. "It sounds like exactly the sort of thing they would do."

"What do we know about them?" prompted Ernie, hoping that this question would lead his friends into realizing that the Weasley twins, though admittedly disruptive, were indeed trustworthy, at least to a point.

"Their troublemakers," said Justin immediately.

"They're incredibly good-looking," countered Susan.

"They like to play pranks," added Hannah.

"They've gotten detention before," said Justin.

"They've incredibly good-looking," repeated Susan.

"They've never been kicked out?" offered Hannah, making it sound more like a question then a statement.

"Yet."

"They're incredibly good—"

"Enough about how good looking they are," said Ernie, starting to feel annoyed by Susan's mantra.

"Sorry," said Susan brightly, smiling at him. "But it's true."

She only shrugged when Ernie glared at her, transferring her smile to Hannah as the latter rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

"They have their own drawer in Filch's office," said Justin, having ignored the entire exchange between Susan and Ernie. "No one else in the whole school has their own drawer."

"How do you know that?" asked Hannah lowering her voice and wincing slightly as the Bloody Baron emerged from the wall just in front of her and floated past, clanking slightly.

Justin immediately colored, waiting until the Bloody Baron had floated down the hall before answering. "Filch caught near the forbidden corridor on the third floor. Not my fault of course, it was only my fourth day, and the castle's a bit confusing. My parents weren't pleased, fourth day and already in detention…"

"Nothing wrong with that, we don't really consider anyone a student before they've been given detention," said a loud voice from behind them, so unexpectedly that it was just as bad as someone yelling "boo!"

Ernie jumped so high that he thought his head might hit the ceiling. Hannah let out a shriek, Justin turned around so quickly that he lost balance and fell to the floor, and Susan slipped from where she had been leaning against the statue.

"Well, that caused a bit more of a reaction then I thought it would," said the one of the Weasley twins (who else could it have been?), grinning at them as Ernie turned to face them.

"It certainly did," agreed the other easily. "By the way," he added to Ernie, who could feel himself frowning at them, though not nearly as much as Justin was. "Have you been practicing that jump?"

"You should," said the other. "Jump like that might break the record in a few years."

"You reckon?" asked the other one mockingly, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Oh ,yeah," said the other one, whom Ernie decided to call Fred to simplify matters. "A jump like that would have done a cat proud."

Then, they turned back to face the Ernie, identical grins on their faces. After a slightly awkward silence, where Susan picked herself up, and Justin dusted himself off, Ernie cleared his throat.

"If you've quite finished yelling behind people's backs," he said, trying not to sound to cross and failing rather badly at it, "Have you got anything for us?"

"If you haven't that fine too," said Justin quickly, "We'll make do without."

Fred ignored him. "We've got your basic assortment of tricks…"

"Canary Creams, Skiving Snackboxes, fake wands…"

"If you want some of our fireworks, as seen last week, when you might have noticed them floating around, you can put your name down for some, might take a while though, we've been swamped by orders…"

"Awfully lot of stuff, isn't?" muttered Justin, having walked up to where Ernie was without Ernie noticing.

Ernie couldn't help but agree with him as the Weasley twins continued to rattle off a stream of items, fully half of which had names so confusing that Ernie missed the other half.

"Well, which one do you want?" asked George, when none of them spoke up.

Ernie glanced around. Hannah and Susan were both looking at him, shrugging, and Ernie knew Justin would also be looking at him if he wasn't so busy watching the twins suspiciously.

With the Weasley twins still looking at him expectantly Ernie seized the first thing that came to mind, valiantly trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about. "Canary Creams."

"How many?" said Fred, reaching into his robes.

"Hold on, what are Canary creams?" asked Hannah, frowning and shooting a quizzical look around the corridor.

"It's something you use to cream a canary," said Susan in a tone so serious that Ernie was still wondering how she knew that, when she ruined the effect by giggling madly.

"You eat one and it turns you into a canary," corrected George, glancing at Susan with a look that was as close to bemused as Ernie had ever seen on his face, blissfully unaware that he had just saved Ernie from the embarrassment that of admitting that he had no clue what they did.

"How many?" repeated Fred, taking out a small bag from his robes.

"Six," said Ernie, after a few seconds silence, during which he realized that he had no clue how many he needed, nor how they could get Umbridge to eat them.

"Thirty-five sickles then," said George, holding out a hand and waiting as Ernie reached into his pockets and shoved some silver into his hand.

"Here you go," said Fred, handing the bag out to Justin, who took it very gingerly, as if he was afraid it might burst into flame.

"Thank you," said Justin, not sounding overly thankful

"There's seven in there, but I threw in the last one free," said Fred, grinning at Justin, who was now looking at the bag as if it might explode.

"Is it going to explode?" asked Justin, trying to sound casual.

""Relax, we didn't do anything to it," said George.

"If you're planning something against Umbridge, and we've got a funny suspicion that you are, then who are we to charge for it?" said Fred, grinning at Justin, who nevertheless wasted no time in passing the bag to Ernie.

"Now all we have to do is feed them to Umbridge somehow," he said, scooting away from Ernie.

"How are we going to do that?" asked Hannah, looking at all of them, a small frown creasing her eyebrows.

"Don't ask us," said Fred.

"Yeah, we're just the suppliers to all your mischief needs," said George.

"Hold on," said Ernie, as the twins turned to leave, a sudden idea coming to him. "Do the Creams still work if you mix them in with other food?

Ernie saw Fred and George half glance at each other.

"Yeah," said Fred.

"We can guarantee it," said George.

"You're thinking that you'll just mash it in with her food?" said Hannah, moving forward to get a better look at the bag.

"Unless any of us can think of anything better," Ernie nodded, feeling better now that he had some idea of what he needed to do.

"Good idea!" Hannah sounded impressed, and Ernie sorely hoped that her faith in him wasn't missed-placed.

"Well, if that's all, we're going to head down to dinner," said Fred, indicating himself and George.

"Best of luck with… whatever you're planning," said George, tapping his finger against his nose and winking.

And they walked away, both wearing the smirk of people who have succeeded in their goal, leaving Ernie and the others standing there.

"Should we go down to dinner then?" prompted Susan, stepping out from the alcove that witch guarded.

"Hold on," said Justin, staring at the bag. "How do we know _they_ " here he glared down the corridor that the Weasley twins had disappeared down "gave us the real stuff?"

"Justin," sighed Ernie, tired of his best friend's continual distrust. "We can trust them because if they gave us false creams—or rather, real creams—then no one would buy their real creams.

"You mean their fake Creams," said Hannah. Ernie threw his hands up in exasperation, the bag whacking him on the head as he did so.

" _Ouch_. I mean, yes, Hannah, the fake ones."

"I'm still not convinced," said Justin, and Ernie resisted the temptation to hit Justin with the bag.

"Then let's try it," said Susan, yanking the bag out of Ernie's hand before he could protest. She reached in, pulled out a cream, and stuffed it into her mouth so quickly that Hannah didn't have enough complete her sentence.

"Oh Susan, are you sure that's… oh forget it then."

"We can't give these to Umbridge," said Susan, swallowing the cream.

"Why not?" asked Ernie, torn before annoyance with Susan for eating five sickles worth of dessert and eagerness for her to turn into a giant canary.

"Their delicious!" said Susan, beaming at them.

Then she turned into the biggest canary that Ernie had ever seen.

Guess it worked then," said Hannah, "But let's hope it wears off."

Ernie nodded idly, watching as Susan the canary examined herself, before suddenly charging at them, catching both Ernie and Justin by surprise. Ernie fell back quickly, just managing to retain his footing and the giant bird squawked in a manner that was eerily similar to Susan's normal laugh.

"Really?" said Ernie, feeling increasingly like he was the only normal person left in the hallway as Susan's feathers began to molt, and she reappeared, laughing breathlessly.

"I couldn't resist," apologized Susan, once she had hiccupped up her way back to seriousness.

"If that's finished," said Justin dryly, "could we please go down to eat?"

"And then back to the common room to hear the plan?" said Ernie, pleased with this plan, since it would give him time to think of a plan.

"Wait," said Hannah, sounding serious, and shuffling the feathers Susan had molted into a pile behind the witch with her foot, and only looking slightly guilty at hiding the mess. "We could be overheard there!"

"Your right," said Justin, staring around wildly. He brightened, then crossed the hallway to a door and pushed it open, holding it open for the others.

Thanks," said Susan, smiling at Justin as she walked through the open door. Hannah followed her, nervously checking that they weren't being watched before rushing in after Susan.

"Fantastic," muttered Ernie, not liking the change at all. However, there wasn't much he could do but to follow his friends into the classroom.

"We shouldn't be interrupted in here," said Justin, carefully shutting the door behind him. "What's the plan, Ernie?"

"Right, the plan," Ernie cleared his throat and gave it his best shot. "Well, we have to put the creams into her food, right? And there's only one way to get to her food without the rest of the school watching…"

"The Kitchens," said Justin in sudden understanding. "Of course!"

"Keep your voice down!" implored Hannah.

"Right. The kitchens. Then we get the house-elves to mash the Canary Creams into her food, they serve it, and then she turns into a Canary in front of the whole school."

"Simple," commented Justin, smiling. "I like it."

"You do?" said Ernie, surprised.

"Just a few problems that I see," said Justin.

"Oh," said Ernie. "I see."

"Well, one, do any of us know where the kitchens are?" asked Justin, receiving muttered negatives. "Well then, how are we going to get the house-elves to put it into her food?"

"We could ask the Weasley—" began Susan.

'No," said Justin shortly.

"Do any of you know what Umbridge eats?" said Hannah, playing with her wand again.

"And for that matter how are we going to make sure that only she eats it?" said Susan, still frowning at Justin.

"And won't the house elves get into trouble?" asked Justin, staring out of a window. "We can't have that…"

"Yes, your all quite right," said Ernie, holding up his hands to forestall any more holes in his plan, which he could admit to himself he had really rather liked. "All right, let's go down to dinner, since I'm personally too hungry to think right anyway, and we can all try and think ways to overcome the difficulties, all right?"

There was a muttered agreement, and Justin stomped back to the door, holding it open once more so that they could all leave once more.

Ernie went last, letting the others get ahead of him slightly. He was confident that, though they might not to anything tonight, or even this week, together they would make Umbridge rue the day she tried to take over the castle for the ministry.

(After all, together, the four of them could hardly fail.)

* * *

 **A/N: Again, I apologize for this taking so long to write. This is the third time I've tried to write this, but really, I have no good excuse. However, the good news is that I already have a fairly good idea what the next chapter will contain. Of course, it's about Fred and George, so really, J.K. Rowling already had done most of the work, but, hey, at least it shouldn't take as long. (Don't hold me to that!)**

 **Thanks for reading, and may your travels be ever safe.**


	6. Fred and George (A spot of trouble)

**A/N: So about it not taking that long...I know that it's been over a month and I apologize for it. I've started working on the next chapter already, so...well, this time I'm not going to make any promises.**

 **Also, I think a disclaimer might be in order, since some of the last few pages belong to J.K. Rowling. So:**

 **I, Gambitized, do henceforth and forthhence declare that I own nothing of Harry Potter, and that I (sadly) receive nothing but reviews for my efforts.**

* * *

George had a feeling that they were going to be in a whole heap of trouble if they were caught, but with a skill born of a lifetime of practice, he ignored it.

Beside him, Fred hurried up his stride, a good-natured grin on his face. It was a grin that anyone who had ever met him knew meant trouble.

Though in fairness, anyone who had ever met them would have guessed that they going to cause trouble without the grin anyway, and privately George had to admit that at least half the time they would be right.

"You reckon this is a good spot?" said Fred, looking at the empty corridor. Due to the location of the corridor, it was one of the most direct ways to traverse between most of the classes on the fifth floor and the marble staircase, which meant that when the bell rang, it was full of students leaving or heading to the classrooms there.

"This will do nicely," said George, glancing at his watch. They had only a minute or so before the bell rang, and until everyone came flooding in.

Perfect.

Fred pulled out a lump beneath his robes, placing it on the floor. George looked at for it a moment, thinking that when they sold them, they had better come up with a more attractive package then the shapeless grey cloth that currently contained the swamp. A product of theirs deserved something much, much brighter than that.

"Let's get out of the blast radius," said Fred, giving the package one last nudge with his foot to settle it into place. George followed him to the end of the corridor, well out of reach of where the swamp would be. They both turned around and regarded the package once more.

"We need to make a better package for it," said Fred cheerfully, checking his watch.

"Something brighter," agreed George, as the bell rang, and a loud outbreak of chattering erupted as people started to talk. Moments later, the first of them started filing into the corridor, most of them ignoring the package.

Of course, most of them didn't mean all of them.

"What's this?" asked Warrenton, Inquisitorial Squad member extraordinaire. A small group of students made a ring around him as he poked it with his wand. Other students moved around them, most muttering their irritation at people who stopped in the middle of corridors.

"Would you care to do the honours?" asked George, grinning evilly at what was about to happen.

"Happily," replied Fred, pulling out his wand and taking carful aim. There was half a second where nothing happened, and then—

As far as explosions go, it wasn't very loud. The only noise was a soft sort of _pop_ , and then a swamp flew into existence. Mucky water poured from the bag in an uninterrupted torrent; plants sprang from the bag and found homes on the walls. Slender trees grew up from the water amongst the groups of students, and plants floated to the top of the water. Just to top it all off, a special concoction of Stinksap and a few extra ingredients Fred and George had 'found' started shooting from the plants and trees, spraying sap through the air. Warrenton and those closest to where the package had been got covered in the stuff, though almost no one in the corridor escaped getting hit by it.

Screams and shouts filled the air, along with a goodly amount of spitting and swearing. Fred glanced at George, grinning, and George had to agree with him; this was quite possibly the most impressive thing they had ever made. In fact, it was working rather better than they thought it would. George quickly grabbed Fred's robes and backpedalled as a thin stream of swampy water nearly caught their shoes.

The students caught in the swamp were sloshing resignedly toward whichever dry part of the corridor they were closest to. Most of them were trying to wipe the sap off their faces, and more than a one were desperately waving their wands in a futile effort to clean off objects that they were holding.

"We should probably leave," George let go of Fred and backed around the corner where the water couldn't reach them. "Before someone accuses us of something."

"I guess so," sighed Fred, setting off at a leisurely pace. "D'you reckon any of the tapestries on the wall hide a place where we could hear Umbridge when she comes?"

"Don't think so," admitted George, after thinking for a moment. "What we do for the price of friendship, Huh?"

"Too right," said Fred, graciously moving to the side as several members of the Inquisitorial Squad ran toward the swamp, where people could still be heard fighting their way out.

"Hold on," said one, stopping. The others barrelled around the corner, splashing loudly through the water and leaving him behind. "What are you doing here?"

"Us?" echoed Fred, smiling as innocently as possible, a wasted movement if George had ever seen one. "We're just hurrying back to our common room, like everyone else."

"Right," said the Inquisitorial Squad member disbelievingly. "You two just _happen_ to be walking away from a scene of a prank."

"Yeah," said George. "Unlikely as it sounds."

"It does sound unlikely, doesn't George?" said Fred. George threw him a look, but Fred was still looking at the Inquisitorial Squad member.

"Very unlikely," admitted George, following along.

"It's so unlikely that it borders on the unbelievable as a matter of fact," said Fred, looking down at the lone member of the Squad. "But seeing as you're alone, and you don't have any proof…"

"It would be pretty stupid of you to accuse us of doing something that we didn't do," said George, scowling at the Squad member.

"After all, it's very wrong to punish people when you don't know if they've done something wrong," said Fred, an ugly look on his face.

"What's going on here?" said the irritatingly familiar voice of Umbridge herself. George turned in time for him to see her puffing her way up the marble staircase, very red faced.

"We're being accosted against our will," said Fred hotly.

"Oh, I very much doubt that anyone could accost you, Mr. Weasley," said Umbridge as sweetly as anyone who was breathing as hard as her could be, eyes flashing at them. George supposed that it was supposed to be scary, though anyone who grew up being scolded by Molly Weasley found the effect quite unscary. "Now, I repeat, what is going on here?"

"I caught these two hurrying away from the scene of the crime," said the Squad Member. "They've as good as admitted they did it."

"No, we told you not to jump to assumptions." George corrected him.

"Are you correcting me?" snarled the Squad Member.

"Obviously," said Fred, rolling his eyes. The Squad Member blinked rather stupidly.

"Come now," said Umbridge, trotting up until she was standing in front of Fred. "Mr. Weasley, you must know who did it, even _if_ you didn't do it yourself."

"'fraid not," said George breezily.

"Then I'm afraid I'll just have to put you, and every other student in the corridor in detention," said Umbridge after a long pause, talking in her sweetest tone of voice.

"You can't just put everyone in detention," said Fred furiously. "That's not fair!"

"You leave me with no alternatives," said Umbridge, smile still fixed to her face.

Fred, eyes narrowing, turned to George, and George nodded very slightly, anger building in his chest. He knew exactly what his twin was thinking right now, and he agreed whole-heartedly.

They were leaving Hogwarts, and they were going to make a mess, though if George was honest with himself, he suspected it wouldn't be in that order.

They moved as one. George Stunned the Squad Member in front of him with a loud bang, the force of the spell sending him tumbling backward. Umbridge turned, mouth forming an outraged expression as she drew her wand, a furious looking coming over her face.

Fred cut her off, not bothering to use his wand, instead punching Umbridge. Umbridge let out a squeak, falling to the floor and letting go of her wand. Her hand flew up to her jaw, where Fred had hit her.

"You have no idea," said Fred, a great deal of relish in his voice, "how good that felt."

"Did it?" George asked innocently, kicking Umbridge's wand away from her as she reached for it.

"You two aren't going to get away with wrongdoing this time," Umbridge hissed, all signs of fake sweetness gone.

"Oh shut it you old bat," said Fred.

"Yeah, we really don't care if you expel us," said George. He could hear cries of renewed outrage from the swamp, and could start to see several students finally make their way out, rounding the corner, their robes soaked in sap. Unsurprisingly, they stopped when they saw Umbridge on the ground.

"Oh, I won't expel you," said Umbridge, reaching for her wand again. "Not right away. I'll make sure you have detentions all year, and _then_ I'll make sure your expelled."

"Well, that does sound frightening, doesn't it Fred," said George, walking two steps and kicking her wand away with just the right amount of venom the situation warranted.

"Absolutely terrifying," said Fred. "She'll probably make sure we can never get jobs at the Ministry."

"Well, I guess she's good for something then," said George.

"You can't run away from your problems forever," said Umbridge, stubby hands clenched into fists.

George was just about to respond when he saw three fresh members of the Inquisitorial Squad break free of the swamp, sap dripping off the ends of their robes. Though they were still quite far off, the expressions of anger on their faces were quite easy to see, even under the sap.

"What the," began the burly one, stopping up short when he saw Umbridge on the ground. The other two already had their wands out and had sent a pair of Stunners down the corridor toward Fred and George.

George blocked them neatly, diverting them into a portrait. The occupants of the portrait, a fat little witch and a chubby man, screamed and fled into their neighbours portrait.

"The Weasley twins caused the swamp!" roared the Squad Member who hadn't cast a spell; he had magnified his voice so that it echoed around the castle. "Get them!"

"I think that's our cue to leave then," said Fred lightly, ducking as another Stunner flew over his head.

"It could be," agreed George, blocking a Full Body Bind.

Together, they sent two of their own Stunners down the hall, then turned tail and ran with as much dignity as possible. Spells flew over their shoulders, and the burly one was still bellowing loudly, so that half the castle could hear what he was saying.

"This way," cried Fred, ducking through a door pretending to be a wall, huffing a little as he climbed a set of stairs that led to the seventh floor. George followed, not bothering to question why they were running _up_ instead of down. After all, where was the fun of leaving so soon?

"There!" yelled Theodore Nott, as Fred and George pushed through the tapestry at the top. Nott was at the far end of the corridor, but he was already running toward them with three more members of the Inquisitorial squad in tow.

"There's more of them then I remember there being," said Fred calmly, sending a Trip Jinx toward one. The unfortunate member went sliding into the path of another member, sending her to the floor as well.

Nott sent a silver jet of light that left a crater where George had been a moment before. Together, the twins turned and ran, their footsteps pounding around the floor as they turned a corner onto a landing of the marble staircase. Students, walking down to dinner or going toward their common rooms stopped as Fred and George sprinted through them. As they reached the biggest knot of students, Fred drew out a handful of stink pellets and threw them back down the corridor. A nasty smell floated after them, and one of the students behind them yelled, "Oh come on, that's just churlish!"

George skidded around the next corner, but not before he caught a glimpse of Nott running through the noxious yellow gas that rose up from the remains of the pellets. George grinned and dashed down the corridor after his twin.

"Terribly sorry," said Fred, pushing his way through Dean and Seamus as they opened their mouths to ask what was going on. "No time right now."

"Don't let them get away!" yelled Nott, pointing as he turned into the corridor the twins were in. All three of his comrades had caught up, and were pushing their way through the crowd toward the twins.

"We'll stall them," offered Seamus, a grin of his own growing on his face. "Give you some breathing room."

Dean dropped his schoolbag to the floor, 'accidently' sending an inkwell rolling across the floor, where one of the Squad Members stepped on it, smashing it and spreading ink over the floor. George hurried through what seemed to be a solid wall, but not before he heard Dean yelling about how his favourite inkwell had been ruthlessly crushed.

Fred caught up to him, breathing heavily as they jogged, but grinning happily.

"We should have done this ages ago," said George, moving through another stone wall and into a more deserted corridor, with only a gaggle of second year boys moving down it.

Fred nodded happily, pulling out another couple of Stinkpellets and tossing them down the corridor, ignoring the looks the second years were giving them. For good measure, George tossed a few of Dungbombs down the corridor as well. The second year boys watched them with bemused expressions, looking unsure if they should tell a prefect or just start tossing their own Dungbombs around.

George jogged down the other end of the corridor, casting a Disillusion Charm on himself and pushing himself against the wall on the other side of a suit of armour. Fred joined him just as Nott and another Slytherin spilled out of the wall.

"Where they go?" Nott yelled at the second years. Before they had done more than open their mouths, his comrade grabbed his arm and pointed at the gas the Stinkpellets had let off. With a cry of triumph, Nott and his friend ran through it, foolishly assuming that the twins had left a path for them to follow.

George waited patiently until they had rounded the corner before he lifted the Disillusion Charm. Fred did likewise, and together they walked down the opposite end of the corridor that Nott had run down.

Exactly five seconds passed before they ran into Mrs. Norris. George blinked at her. Of all the people who he had expected to encounter next, the cat had not been whom he had been expecting.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" asked Fred, after a moment where the twins and the cat sized each other up.

"Always," replied George.

Mrs. Norris blinked at them, and then turned quickly around and trotted away, mystically maintaining her dignity in a way that George had to admire. Quick as a snake, Fred lunged forward and grabbed her, bundling her close; yowling, she tried to scratch at him, but a quick Body Bind took care of that. Hastily, the twins set her on top of a suit of armour, taking care to position her so that she would surprise anyone who walked down the corridor. George had to admit, considering she was as small as she was, Mrs. Norris looked quite fearsome with her teeth bared like that, from the top of a helmet.

Satisfied with the mess they had made on the seventh floor, the twins took a different shortcut back down to the fifth floor. Though Fred didn't say anything, George knew that he wanted to see the fruit of his labours. They took the shortcut closest to the swamp, one that would put them about halfway down the corridor that they had just so recently vacated. Pushing through the false wall, George nearly ran into Fred, who was face to face with one Argus Filch.

Behind Filch, a crowd of students were clamouring to see the new swamp, likely drawn by the screams. Many of them were examining their Stinksap-covered friends (from a safe distance) trying not to laugh too hard as their friends attempted to remove the sap from their robes. Umbridge was nowhere to be seen, a fact that George was semi-thankful for.

"What have you done with my cat?" snarled Filch, considerately waiting until they were both through the wall before he asked his question.

"I thought I saw her," said Fred mock thoughtfully.

"Just a while ago," said George.

"She was screaming something fierce," said Fred, nodding as though it was coming back to him.

"Something about having swamp in her eye," said George, smiling at Filch.

"You…You…," stuttered Filch, either trying to come up with a name bad enough for George, or else just wanting to include both of them in what he was about to say (it was hard to tell sometimes, one of the downsides to being a twin). "You'll be strung for this one."

"That's a popular sentiment right now, isn't it George?" said Fred.

"I'm a little insulted that we weren't this popular earlier actually," admitted George.

"I suppose we just weren't trying hard enough," sighed Fred. "Excuse us," he added to Filch, who was still too incoherent to mutter much of anything beside variations of 'I'll get you for this.'

This time, they made of all of six feet when another voice rang out behind them.

"They're right there," screamed Pansy Parkinson, emerging from the corridor the swamp was in, covered in sap and looking spectacularly furious. "You ruined my robes!"

"Busy day isn't it?" said George, deflecting Pansy's curse into a wall.

George thought Fred said something, but he couldn't quite hear him properly over the renewed yelling of the crowd. Fred was already moving away from Pansy, urging people out of his way. Pansy was continuing to send curses their way, but wasn't having much luck with all the students in the way. More than a few yelled at her to stop, and some of the first years were cowering behind their bigger housemates.

George pushed his way closer to Fred, not wanting to get too separated from him. The crowd didn't seem to want to accommodate him however, and George was forced to knock several Gryffindor girls aside to reach Fred again. More than few of the students were pointing at them, whispering something about a swamp and a Stunned Slytherin, and George couldn't help but grin. At the very least, he and Fred would provide a good subject of talk for the next few months.

"There's more of them," said Fred, once George got close enough. George followed where Fred's finger was pointing and saw Warrenton, covered head to toe in sap, waddle his way past Pansy and force his way through the crowd, most of who drew back in fear of this sap-covered monster arriving in their midst.

"Third floor now?" said George, a more people brushed past him to join the crowd.

"The armour?" said Fred, watching with interest as Warrenton trample his way through the crowd, waving his sap covered arms before him. Behind him, Pansy and several others were moving through the gangway Warrenton had cleared.

"That's what I'm thinking," said George, ignoring Warrenton's bellowed threats. "Let's go before they manage to get lucky."

George had turned to head down the stairs when Fred caught his arm and pointed at the entrance of the swamp. Peeves, a bucket in hand, had just flown out of it, singing happily:

" _Oh, the Corridor made of swampy sap_

 _Stuffed bursting and full of crap,_

 _Peevesy will empty it right into your lap!"_

"Delightful imagery," grinned Fred, beaming proudly as Peeves made good on his song and poured the whole bucketful of sap into the middle of the students. Renewed screams arose as the newly sap-covered students started a kind of war dance in an effort to get the it off.

"The armour," yelled Fred, half laughing and half yelling as he grabbed George and jogged toward the marble staircase. George followed him, trying to fix the image of Peeves dumping the bucket on the students forever in his mind.

The marble staircase was full of students, and more than a few of them called out questions when they saw Fred and George, but Fred and George pressed by them, in too much of a rush to be bothered. It wasn't until they reached the third floor that George saw the Inquisitorial Squad break free of the crowd and start down the staircase after them. George couldn't resist giving them a taunting wave before he ducked into the third floor corridor.

They stopped at the first suit of armour they saw. It was a hulking piece of metal, a little taller than them, and it creaked protestingly as they pulled out their wands and pointed them at it.

"Sorry," George told it, waving his wand over its legs. Fred shrugged at it when it creaked again, too busy muttering under his breath to say anything.

A few seconds later, it looked as though there was a whole new suit of armour standing there. The armour was now coloured an unforgivable garish pink, and every time it creaked, a sound of a kitten meowing came from it instead. As Fred and George made their way over to the next one, the helmet turned to follow them, meowing pitifully.

Working quickly, Fred and George soon had most of the suits in the corridor in the same state, and had almost finished the last one when at least half of the Inquisitorial Squad came flooding into the corridor.

"There they are!" screamed Warrenton, cowering as the suits of armour meowed at him.

"Make them pay for the swamp," yelled another.

"Shut up these bloody suits," cried a third, covering her ears as the suits continued to meow, objecting to their new look.

"Guess it's time to go again," said Fred, backing away quickly.

"We're just not welcomed anywhere, are we?" said George, scrambling back faster than he had previously thought possible.

With a roar, The Inquisitorial Squad charged forward, curses and spells flying before them. Faced with very bad odds, Fred and George quickly legged it down the corridor.

"Over here," yelled George, darting through yet another shortcut. They raced down it, emerging in a second floor corridor crowded with students whispering excitingly to their friends.

"Can we help?" said Terry Boot eagerly from where he stood talking with Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein.

George waved vaguely as he passed, too busy running through the students to yell. Behind him, he heard the Inquisitorial Squad blunder into the corridor.

"Never mind," George heard Terry call. "You're on your own."

This time Fred waved something, and together the twins burst out into the marble staircase once more, ignoring the yells as they almost ran into people.

"Up?" asked Fred, skidding to a stop almost on top of the Creevey brothers.

"Sur—" George began, then spotted the most of the other half of the Inquisitorial Squad bowling people out of their way as they made their way down, led by Nott, Pansy, and Malfoy. George could hear their shouts as they spotted the twin's red hair. "You know what, I'm thinking down."

"I'm right with you," said Fred, jumping down the stairs two at a time.

George followed closely, the rush of the wind sliding past his ears blocking the sound of the Inquisitorial Squad's threats. They didn't seem to dare send curses at them because of how crowded the staircase was, but they were chasing them with as much enthusiasm as a Hagrid confronted with a dangerous magical creature, and George thought they might be catching up. Certainly it would be hard to lose them when they outnumbered Fred and George by ten to one.

George jumped the last five steps, joining Fred in the Entrance Hall. The doors to the Great Hall were open, and George wondered if there were enough students in there to start a food fight before they left.

"The Great Hall then?" said Fred, already marching toward the Hall.

"I'm right with you," said George, a fresh smile breaking out as he wondered what sort of food was going to be in there. Personally, he was hoping for soup. In an ordinary food fight, there wasn't much potential in soup, but with magic to hurl all the broth about, he had high hopes for it.

"You got to be kidding me," said Fred, coming to a halt. Another half-dozen members of the Inquisitorial Squad had just emerged from the Great Hall, half of them clutching bits of food, but the other half definitely holding wands pointed in the twin's direction.

"There are definitely more of them then I thought," said George, but his in spite of his causal tone, he felt his heart sink. He had really wanted to participate in a food fight. "What are the chances of us running into _every_ single one of them?"

"Don't try anything," called Malfoy, descending the steps with a wide, satisfied smirk on his face. "You don't have anywhere to go."

"Basement?" muttered Fred, backing up.

"Don't think there's a way out," said George, speaking just as quietly. They had already backed up several yards before George even noticed what they were doing. "Besides, that's the one place they might know better than we do."

"Good point," said Fred, looking around. Students, either following the noise or else coming down for an early dinner, were gathering on the stairs, and a few of the braver ones were even moving past the Inquisitorial Squad and onto the floor.

"Someone get Umbridge," yelled Warrenton, and there was a scramble as a few of the Squad members pushed their way back through the crowd.

"Don't think there's a way out of this one," said Fred, giving a wave to the people who had started to form a circle around them.

"Going to leave then?" said George, smiling and giving a mocking bow to the Inquisitorial members who were covered in sap.

"Yeah. Brooms?" asked Fred.

"Once Umbridge arrives." said George firmly. He definitely wanted to see her face as they left.

More students and teachers were coming, drawn to the spectacle, and Peeves arrived, flying over the crowd with his bucket ready again, but most of the people below him had their wands out, ready to stop the sap before it fell on them.

George waved and smiled as people he knew arrived. Angelina looked like she was having a grand old time, and Katie was nudging Alicia and whispering something, while Alicia was reluctantly handing over a sickle. Anthony, Terry, and Michael all arrived together, talking happily, and it was only a minute after them when Ron and Hermione arrived. For the first time, George felt an inkling of worry hit him. He had promised Harry over twenty minutes, and he wasn't at all sure that they had given him enough time to do...whatever he was doing.

They waited as patiently as they could, trying not to feel trapped as more and more people arrived. Lacking room on the stairs, most of them went around the Inquisitorial Squad and formed a giant half circle around the twins, talking excitedly, filling the hall with a loud bustle. Peeves finally managed to dump his load of Stinksap on an unsuspecting group, but he instead of getting more he chucked his bucket and entertained himself by making rude gestures at the crowd. It wasn't until George had just spotted an ink-splattered Dean and Seamus joining the crowd when he (finally) got sight of Umbridge.

Not that he really 'got sight of her.' She was much too short for that. She could only be tracked by how people reacted to her. It was like watching shadow, in that it was hard to see, but definitely there. Gradually, people quieted down as they saw her arrive.

"So... you think it amusing to turn a school corridor into a swamp do you?" said Umbridge in a carrying voice, stopping very far out of reach of Fred's fists. From her position on the stairs, she was taller then they, though George knew very well that a person didn't have to be very tall to be scary.

"Pretty amusing, yeah," said Fred, the hand not clenched around his wand curling into a fist.

George saw Filch make his way through the crowd, looking at the piece of paper clutched in his hands with as close to loving expression on his face as George had ever seen.

"I've got the form, headmistress," he said, voice hoarse from happiness. "I've got the form and I've the whips waiting...Oh, let me do it now..."

He sounded so happy that George felt, for a very brief moment, a little bad that Filch was going to be disappointed.

"Very good, Argus," Umbridge said, looking down at both of them. "You two are going to learn what happens to wrongdoers at my school."

"You know what," said Fred, and George could feel his excitement, though he was hiding it under a causal tone. "I don't think we are."

Fred turned to look at George, and George nodded very slightly, letting his twin know he was ready.

"George," said Fred with the air of someone wanting to go out for a bit of tea. "I think we've outgrown full-time education."

"Yeah, I've been feeling that way myself," said George lightly.

"Time to test out talents in the real world, d'you reckon?" said Fred, readying his wand.

"Definitely," said George. The words felt good as they left his mouth. George hadn't realized just how ready he was to leave the castle. They'd had good times here, but he was definitely ready to leave for good.

Together, in one motion, they raised the wands and said " _Accio Brooms!"_

George felt for a moment very cool, then very foolish as they stood with their wands raise like that. Less than a second later however, he heard a loud crash echo through the silent castle, then saw their brooms soaring toward them, seeming happy to be flying again. Fred's still had a chain attached to it, and it nearly clobbered a few students before coming to rest in front of Fred, hovering at waist level. George frowned slightly. He had been hoping that the chain would hit Umbridge on the way down.

Not that he can complain, since she had already been hit once today, George thought, as he grabbed his own broom as it stopped sharply in front of him.

"We won't be seeing you," said Fred happily, mounting his broomstick.

"Yeah, don't bother keeping in touch," said George, mounting his broomstick as well. He grinned slightly as his feet left the floor. He had forgotten how good it felt to be flying.

"If anyone fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-nine, Diagon Alley — Weasley Wizard Wheezes," Fred called loudly, grinning at the watchful crowd. "Our new premises!"

"Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they're going to use our products to get rid of this old bat," George called, forcing himself to remain at ground level as his broom bobbed up and down slightly.

"STOP THEM," shrieked Umbridge, but it was too little, too late. The Inquisitorial Squad, too busy looking proud they had caught the dreaded Weasley twins, raised their wands a little too slow. George kicked off and shot up fifteen feet, floating high above the crowd.

"Give her hell from us Peeves," said Fred, a wide grin growing on his face to match the one on George's.

George didn't know how Peeves would react, but his grin only grew wider as Peeves took of his hat and saluted proudly.

Together, with all the students (and more than a few of the staff) cheering them on, Fred and George turned their backs on Umbridge and dove through the front doors, flying heroically into the sunset.

At least, to the onlookers, it looked heroic. All George could see was the bright sun in his eyes, and he could feel his eyes tearing up as he tried to look into it.

I think that went rather well," said Fred, after a minute or two of flying. He pulled up, staring back at the now distant castle.

"Yep," said George, squinting back toward the castle. From this distance he doubted that he could be seen. "So, who's going to tell Mum?"

The grin on Fred's face melted away, replaced by a look of horror. He looking more scared then he had all day.

"Oh god," said Fred quietly. They floated there for a moment as the implications set in. George frowned as well, feeling much like Fred looked, but then a sudden burst of hope hit him. He turned to his twin, a recovered grin growing on both their faces.

"Ron," they said together, relaxing, crisis averted.

And they flew off, not into the sunset, but pretty close to it.

* * *

 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed it. It turned out to be a little bit longer then I thought it would be, but I think it all worked out in the end.**

 **Thanks for reading, and may your travels be ever safe.**


	7. Padma (A visit to the classroom)

Padma straightened up, trying to see above the crowd, but she wasn't exactly built for height. Which, she thought, was really a pretty big shame, considering the situation Fred and George found themselves in, and how they were going to resolve it, was probably worth watching.

Instead, she couldn't see past some hugely built Gryffindor six year, who didn't even have the sense to know the unspoken rule that people as tall as him always stood in the back, precisely so that a situation like the one Padma was in _wouldn't_ happen.

"Excuse me," Mandy Brocklehurst called, elbowing her way through people. "Short people coming through!"

"Huh?" grunted the huge Gryffindor as Mandy's well-practiced elbows made short work of him, buffering him to the side. Mandy ignored him and wormed her way through the space where the Gryffindor had been. Padma was about to follow her when a sudden idea hit her, stopping her in her tracks.

"Padma!" complained Su Li, pushing against Padma in an effort to get her to move. "Why are you stopping?"

"Well," said Padma slowly, the thrill of the idea shooting through her as she turned to look at her friend. "If everyone's busy here, that means that they won't notice if someone's in the Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom."

"So?" said Su, before what Padma was insinuating hit her. "Nonono, Padma, Your not thinking about getting into trouble."

"Well, a little bit," said Padma, but hurried on as Su blanched. "Don't worry, you and Mandy don't have to come with me."

"Are you sure?" asked Su, biting her lip, but looking very relieved that she had been let off the hook.

"Its fine," reassured Padma, though privately she wished that she someone would come with her. "Don't worry about it. I know how you feel about breaking the rules."

"You're going to break the rules?" asked Su, so horrified that she took a step back, knocking into a sixth year Hufflepuff.

"Maybe a little," said Padma "I'll probably see you and Mandy after dinner."

"Ok," said Su, though she didn't look convinced that she would see Padma alive again. Nevertheless, she pushed after her best friend, leaving Padma in the crowd.

Padma started up the stairs, going against the flow of the crowd. It was hard as people didn't want to move, too engrossed looking at Fred and George to notice her, but it got easier the further she got. She was almost free of the crowd entirely when she caught a glimpse of Terry, Anthony, and Michael leaning against a banister, peering down at the Weasley twins.

Padma hesitated for a second, thinking it over, and then concluded that she definitely didn't want to do this by herself. It was one thing for Su and Mandy to not want to break the rules, but the three boys had already broken the rules for six months to attend illegal meetings.

After a minute of struggling, Padma managed close the distance between them enough grab the back of Anthony's robes.

"Hey!" Padma shouted over the bustle. It seemed that the crowd had only gotten louder since she had left Mandy and Su down at the bottom. Padma wished they quiet down a bit, but it seemed unlikely that would happen. In absence of that, Padma resigned herself to talking louder than usual.

"Hey yourself!" shouted Anthony, nudging sideways into Terry so that Padma had room to join them.

"What's up?" asked Michael, before hastily adding as Terry opened his mouth, "Besides Peeves I mean."

Terry closed his mouth, looking disappointed. Padma guessed that she had missed something, but well used to this, she plowed on.

"Can you three come with me?" she said, gesturing above the crowd to the empty part of the stairs.

"And miss the chance to see Umbridge get humiliated?" said Terry, blue eyes widening innocently. "A once in a lifetime opportunity?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," said Padma, as a sudden upsurge of noise came from the crowd. "But not here."

"That sounds promising," said Michael.

"What? Where are we going?" asked Terry, following them nevertheless as they made their way up the crowd. This time, Padma let Anthony deal with going through the crowd, opting to follow in his footsteps. The crowd parted for him a bit easier, albeit still unwillingly, but soon enough, they were able to get to an empty corridor.

"What did you want to say?" asked Michael, stopping a few paces from her. Terry and Anthony did likewise, forming a loose semi-circle around her.

"We're missing the great student revolt of 96' for this, you know," said Terry, casting a longing look toward the Entrance Hall.

"It occurs to me," started Padma, screwing up her courage. Though she was convinced that it was a good idea, she was starting to feel her stomach churn at the prospect of what she was about to propose. "That Umbridge is going to be busy dealing with the Weasley twins and the swamp for a while."

"They have caused a bit of trouble for her," said Anthony solemnly.

"Well, while she's dealing with them," continued Padma, "Her classroom is likely to be empty."

"And it wouldn't it be a shame of something happened to it, wouldn't it?" said Terry, a grin growing on his face. Michael had grin of his own, and even Anthony was smiling a bit at the prospect.

"I was thinking, that it would be absolutely appalling if someone enchanted her blackboard to not display the lesson plan correctly," said Padma, feeling a little self conscious as they three boys continued to watch her.

"That would be simply dreadful," agreed Terry, rubbing his chin.

"That's good," said Michael, sounding impressed. "Very good. I'm surprised you came up with it."

"Gee, thanks," said Padma.

"I didn't mean it like that," scolded Michael. "I meant that I never suspected you'd be the one to make trouble like that."

"You also didn't think I would enchant your trunk so that it would stay closed until you gave it a password of my choosing," pointed out Anthony.

"That's a good point," admitted Michael. "I was positive it was Terry."

"I may have given him the idea," said Terry.

"When was this?" asked Padma, genuinely curious.

"Back in our third year," Michael said, grimacing a little as he said it. "I think it was before you learned to talk. But I believe we were talking how I never expected you be someone to make trouble."

"Well, hidden depths and all that," said Padma, blushing a bit at the compliment. (She as pretty sure it was a compliment, though she wasn't positive) "Are you guys in?"

"Absolutely," said Terry.

"Me too," said Anthony. "I mean, as a prefect, I probably shouldn't, but some people are worth making an exception for."

"Guess that makes all of us," said Michael

"Let's get started then," said Terry. He strode off toward the third floor, whistling cheerfully, Michael and Anthony right behind him. Dutifully, Padma trailed after them, the nervous feeling in her gut loosening a little as someone else took charge. As they reached the third floor, Terry looked wistfully toward the Entrance Hall, where loud cheers could be heard, but didn't stop, climbing the steps toward the third floor.

"Look at that," Anthony marvelled, as the four of them entered the third floor corridor. "The suits are not in the same state we left them last."

Padma was amazed he say anything. Her mind was more thinking along the lines of 'PINNNNNNKKKKKK!'

"Holy snot," groaned Michael reverently, as one of the pink suits or armour screeched at him like an angry cat.

"That much pink," said Terry weakly, though he recovered quickly "Somewhere blacksmiths are crying into their aprons."

In spite of their causal words, both Terry and Antony sped up, grimacing a bit as the suits meowed pitifully at them. After a few seconds of staring at them, Padma thought they weren't so bad; it was just the unexpected effect of seeing them in the most insulting pink colour known to mankind that had stunned her.

Still, she wouldn't pretend she wasn't grateful when they filed into the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. The classroom was still as they had left when they had gone down to lunch, if a bit quieter. Though, when Padma thought about it, it occurred to her that it had no reason to be different, and came to the conclusion that it was just her nerves doing their best to disrupt her reality.

"Out of curiosity," said Terry, weaving his way through the desks. "Were you thinking of only messing with the blackboard, or also rearranging the furniture?"

"I should hope that we're only messing with the blackboard," said Michael sharply. "It'll only take her a few moments to fix the furniture."

"And she may notice it when she walks in," said Anthony. "Which would ruin the whole bit where it surprises her.

"I don't want to be in here if she comes back," said Padma, checking her watch, though she wasn't sure exactly why, considering that she wasn't even sure why Umbridge would come back into this room for.

"Relax, everyone's either still watching Fred and George, or else at dinner, we got plenty of time," said Terry, pulling out his wand and examining the blackboard.

"First time breaking into a classroom, huh?" said Michael, not unsympathetically. "Don't worry, if you hang out with Terry more you find you doing that a lot."

"I only wanted to see if we could!" protested Terry, tapping gently on the blackboard. "I always wondered what kind of charms they put on these."

"What charms have you found?" asked Anthony, pulling out his own wand and tapping the same as Terry.

"None," said admitted Terry.

"Well, that should make it easy," said Anthony

"Yeah, all we have to do—" started Michael, but was interrupted when the door started to open.

The four of them shot a look at each other, startled expressions on her faces. Fearing the worst, Padma turned toward the door, expecting to see Umbridge storming in. What she saw instead was a face mirroring her expression.

And Padma meant that quite literarily. Parvati had stuck her head into the room, but had frozen halfway through. Padma looked deep into her twin's mind and gathered that she hadn't expected to see other people in this room.

Ok, so Padma couldn't really look into her twin's mind, but after years of knowing her sister, she could read the expressions on her face as easily as she could read a book, and in any case, this was a pretty easy one to guess.

"Parvati? What's wrong?" came Lavender's voice from the other side of the door.

Parvati pushed the door open all the way, revealing Lavender behind it.

"Oh, hey you four!" Lavender said brightly, looking only a little taken back as she walked in.

"I didn't expect more guests," said Terry. "Please, make yourself at home."

"Fancy seeing you here," said Parvati, stepping in as well and shutting the door behind her.

"I couldn't think of a better time than now to break in," admitted Padma, idly playing with her hands as she looked at her sister.

"Yeah, I had the same thought," said Parvati, playing with the silver bangle Padma had given her a few years ago. It was just a nervous tick of Parvati's, but it somehow calmed Padma to find that her sister was nervous about being caught too.

"The both of you had the same thought at the same time?" said Michael, pausing in his tapping of the wand against the blackboard. "Who would have thought?"

"Well, you know what they say," said Padma.

"What do they say?" asked Lavender, pulling out vast amounts of sweets out of her bag and piling it on one of the desks closest to the door.

"Mediocre minds think alike," said Padma, completely straight faced. "What's the plan with all the sweets?"

"And you are twins, so you're bound to think alike," said Michael.

"That's not really how it works," said Padma.

"Unless you're the Weasley twins," said Parvati.

"But they're just creepy that way," said Padma. "But, what's the plan with the sweets?

"They're some of Fred and George's Skiving Snackboxes," said Lavender. "We were thinking we'd stick them inside the desks, and then everyone has a chance to skip class."

"That blackboard's ready now," said Anthony. Terry immediately started using his wand to write on the board.

"That's actually really brilliant," admitted Michael, doing likewise.

"It is," agreed Terry, letting his wand relax. On the blackboard, the words ' _Psychohistory has predicted_ your _failure to retain this position!'_ he glanced at it, and then, apparently satisfied, looked directly at the pile of sweets Lavender had piled on the desk. "Should I ask why you bought that many Skiving Snackboxes in the first place?"

Lavender flushed bright red and let out a guilty laugh.

"That's a no," said Parvati, grabbing a handful and starting to place them into the desks.

"I think we could have guessed that," said Michael, the words ' _Peeves was here!'_ floating on the board for a moment before fading into it.

The six of them set to work, Terry, Michael, and Anthony all working the boards, while Parvati and Lavender dispensed the Snackboxes into all the desks. Padma split her time between the two, helping stuff the Snackboxes in desks, and then the next moment jumping back to the blackboard when she thought of something else to write.

It was surprisingly time consuming, and though they were so focused in their tasks that they were already three-quarters of the way through when Parvati spoke.

Anyone know where Umbridge is?" asked Parvati acting overly causal, but betraying herself by glancing at the door, as though Umbridge might come bursting through at any second.

"In the castle," Padma offered unhelpfully, from where she was standing by the board writing, _'The class is over, please hex your teacher and leave in an orderly manner'_.

"Gee, thanks Padma, you're _so_ helpful," replied Parvati, rolling her eyes. "To you have any more helpful things to tell us? Like if the sky is blue? Or maybe you're going to tell us that Umbridge is still a bitch?"

"Not at the moment," Padma replied, a hint of a smile on her face; Parvati glared at her for a second longer, then smiled reluctantly back at her.

"that's just adorable, the twin thing," said Terry, stepping back as the words ' _Babbitty Rabbitty rabbit may have had a cackling stump, but at least she wasn't as cracked as Dolorey toady,'_ flickered on the board and faded.

"We almost done over there?" asked Michael, as he finished writing, _'This position open for applicants by September 1, please send Professor Dumbledore a letter if interested.'_

"Only got three more desks," chirped Lavender.

"Or about twenty more sweets," said Parvati, rolling her eyes at her friend.

"I can't think of anything else to say," said Anthony, watching his latest words fade into the board.

"Me neither," said Padma, tapping her wand against the board as she thought.

"Personally, I think I've got a few more, but they can wait," said Terry, stepping back from the board and scratching his chin.

"They can wait until you've thought of them you mean," asked Parvati shrewdly.

"I could write them now, but I might run out of blackboard," said Terry. "I need to condense them."

"Don't we all?" said Anthony, as his last phrase (a three word entry) disappeared.

"You don't seem to be having that problem," said Lavender, smirking at him as she put the last few Snackboxes into a desk.

"He's just better then Terry at it," said Michael, chuckling at his own wit as Terry shook his head disappointedly.

"Clever," said Terry in a tone that spoke an implication that was far from the meaning of clever.

"Not his finest work," observed Padma, stowing her wand in her robe.

"I'll give it points for effort," said Parvati.

"You're all too kind," said Michael, stepping back. "Back to the business at hand though, I do believe we're all through here."

The six of them stared around the room, observing their handiwork.

"Doesn't look like we did a whole lot, does it?" said Lavender.

"I think that's a good sign," said Anthony.

"I know," pouted Lavender. "It's just, I wanted to see it."

"Who's got Umbridge first tomorrow?" asked Padma.

"Fourth year Gryffindors," said Michael.

"So your girlfriend should be able to tell what the fruits of our labours were," said Terry, the easy smile back in place. "Excellent. Which, by the way, rhymes with dinner, which we should head down to."

"That doesn't rhyme at all," pointed at Lavender.

"Ahh, that's what everyone says," said Terry, opening the door and holding it open for Lavender as she walked out. "Contrary to popular belief however, excellent has a long historical predicnet..."

Parvati sent a Padma a look that said, "Is he always like this?"

Padma raised an eyebrow and nodded her head slightly, meaning "he's usually worse."

Parvati giggled a bit at that and walked out after Anthony. Padma followed her, casting one last look back at the empty classroom before she shut the door behind her.

Padma got the sense that Umbridge's troubles were just starting.


	8. Ginny (Snackboxes and Rubber ducks)

Everyone one was still talking about Fred and George's escape when Ginny went down to Breakfast the day after they left. She was feeling tired, but she supposed that was only to be expected after a long night of staying up and talking about Fred and George's escape.

Ginny found a spot at the Gryffindor table and sat down at an empty spot, moving some sausages onto her plate and starting to eat them. Without pausing, her hand moved causally down to the fake wand in her pocket for the fifth time that morning. She didn't actually touch it, but she felt its outline through her pocket. Satisfied, she speared another sausage and bit into it, enjoying the taste until it occurred to her that she might have just been feeling her real wand. Freezing with the fork halfway to her mouth, she reached down and felt her other pocket. With a feeling of relief, she felt the shape of another wand.

She resumed eating, but then paused again, as she started wondering which wand was her real wand. She was pretty sure that her real wand was in her right pocket, but the more that she thought about it, the less sure she felt about it.

After all, if she had grabbed the fake wand first, she would have put it into her right pocket. On the other hand, if she had grabbed her real wand before she had grabbed the fake one, which was likely since that's what she always did, she would have also put it into her right pocket.

"But that's only I was sure I would use it first," Ginny muttered to herself, dismayed. She let out a groan and rested her head against the edge of the table, carefully holding her fork away from her.

"Bad time?" asked a voice next to her ear, and Ginny looked up to see Parvati's dark eyes looking at her questioningly.

"Forgot something, that's all," said Ginny, straightening up and noting with a bit of surprise that Lavender wasn't with her. "What's up?"

"It has to do with what's going to happen in Umbridge's class today," said Parvati, settling herself down in the seat next to Ginny and pulling a stack of toast toward her.

"How'd you know what I was going to do?" asked Ginny in surprise. She noticed that she was still holding her fork with a bit of sausage, and quickly set it down on her plate.

"Wait, what?" said Parvati, turning to look at Ginny, both eyebrows lifting up in surprise.

"You don't know that I'm going to do something?" asked Ginny, cringing a bit at her own blunder.

"Now I know you're going to do something," replied Parvati.

"But you didn't know that I was going to do something until I told you?" said Ginny.

"No," admitted Parvati.

"Oh," said Ginny.

There was a pause while they both digested what had been said.

"So, what are you going to do?" prompted Parvati, leaning forward.

"I was going to switch Umbridge's wand for a fake one, that's all," said Ginny. "I know it's nothing special, but I want to keep her from getting too comfortable here."

"Huh," said Parvati thoughtfully. "Me and Lavender may have done something that might help you with that."

"Really?" said Ginny, a little warily. Though she didn't know either Parvati or Lavender very well, she wouldn't put either of them in the category of people whose plans she would trust.

"We put some of your brothers' Snackboxes into the desks," said Parvati, smiling proudly.

"Which desks?" asked Ginny, picking up her fork again.

"All of them," said Parvati.

"I—wow, that's actually really good thinking," said Ginny, mildly impressed.

"You know, you don't have to sound so surprised," grumbled Parvati.

Lavender came up behind Parvati and sat down on her other side.

"Colin's more than happy to spread the word," she said, reaching over for a bit of toast.

"Thanks for this, it'll really help," said Ginny.

"Help what?" said Lavender.

"It also might help to know that the boards have been enchanted," said Parvati offhandedly.

"Yeah," said Ginny wryly, "That might also help."

"Help you do what?" asked Lavender again.

"I'll tell you on the way down to Herbology," said Parvati. "We're going to be late as it is."

"Damn it," whispered Ginny to herself, checking her own watch as Parvati and Lavender left. She looked sadly at her half-eaten plate before getting up; she was still hungry, though she was getting the feeling that this Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson might be done better on a empty stomach anyway.

The other fourth years were already lined up outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom when Ginny got there. Ginny joined the back of the line, feeling perfectly cheerful, though a little hungry.

Ginny spotted Colin Creevey near the front of the line, talking energetically to a crowd that was surrounding him. Ginny caught his eye, and he grinned at her before looking back to his group, miming out the act of vomiting.

The door flew open and Colin stopped immediately, looking guilty. Someone nudged him and they all started filtering in, casting disgruntled looks at Umbridge as they did so. Umbridge herself was still looking smug, though the departure of Fred and George, and her subsequent inability to remove the swamp on the fifth floor seemed to have taken some of the smugness away.

Ginny sat down in her usual seat, next to Emily Ward, who looked at her glumly. Ginny gave a sympathetic look, before she checked for the Snackboxes in her desk. Sure enough, they were right were Parvati had told her they would be, and Ginny, after checking that Umbridge was busy watching the last few students find desks, snuck a Nosebleed Nougat into her pocket.

"Good morning class," said Umbridge, a wide smile stretching her face as she looked around the room.

"Good morning Professor," came the dull chant back, perfected by the number of times they had done this now.

"Very good," said Umbridge, waving her wand at the board. "Today we will be covering chapter 14 in your book—"

She didn't get any further as the class let out a snort of laughter that quickly died away, as Umbridge glared at them.

"What is it?" said Umbridge sweetly, glowering at the room. "Is there something funny?"

Ginny, grinned and lowered her head as the rest of the class shook their heads and did their best to look blameless

"If there's nothing, would you please get on with the reading," said Umbridge, pouchy eyes flickering over the class before coming to rest on Ginny, as if suspecting that she was up to something. Ginny looked back at her with wide eyes, the very picture of innocence.

"The—the reading on the board?" said Emily carefully.

"Yes Miss Ward," said Umbridge, in a tone that didn't quite conceal her annoyance.

"You want us to do what it says?" asked Colin.

Umbridge drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment with the look of someone who was rapidly running out of patience. When she opened them however, her voice was as sickly sweet as ever.

"That is correct, Mr. Creevey."

"Alright then," said Ginny, standing up and reaching for her wand.

"Miss Weasley, what are you doing?" snapped Umbridge, her composure slipping.

"Doing what it says on the board?" said Ginny, making herself look puzzled.

Umbridge stared at her for a moment, looking confused, before she whirled around to face the board, eyes widening. There on the board, in neat lettering, were the words ' _Class is over, please hex your teacher and leave.'_

Ginny quickly sat down as Umbridge turned to face her, her wand in her hand and a murderous look on her face.

"I don't know how you did this, Miss Weasley," she started, waving her wand behind her to get rid of the words. The rest of her threat was cut off as the class snorted with laughter again.

Umbridge shut her mouth, a pained look on her face. She turned slowly to face the board once again, where an untidy scrawl was making a comparison between her face and pickled toad.

Umbridge made a sound of deep annoyance, and advanced toward the board, her wand waving in front of her to clear it. Instead, another message, this one postulating about Umbridge ancestry, spelled itself out. Letting out a much louder noise of anger, Umbridge actually started tapping her wand against the board. Each time she did so another message spelled itself across the board, writing itself out and only reluctantly fading when Umbridge had hit it a few times.

Ginny, after checking that Umbridge was completely occupied, leaned over to nudge Emily Ward. Emily looked over and Ginny reached into her own desk and pulled out another Snackbox. Emily brightened and reached over to grab it from Ginny, but Ginny pointed at Emily's desk.

Ginny glanced up at Umbridge (Who was trying to remove an exceptionally foul-mouthed message from the board) then leaned over and whispered "They're in all the desks."

Emily looked as though Christmas had come again early. Her eyes widened, and a huge, slightly psychotic smile broke up on her face. She quickly leaned over to the other side of her desk and stared whispering urgently to Craig Williams, gesturing toward his desk.

"Who did this?" asked Umbridge, turning to face the class, putting down her wand and clutching the desk so hard with her squat fingers that they turned white as she surveyed the class.

"Maybe it'll tell you if you hit it again Professor?" suggest Ginny,

"Detention, Miss Weasley," said Umbridge, without looking at her. "This will not be tolerated at my school. Whoever did this will be punished, and—"

She was cut off as the class let out another snort of laughter. Nostrils flaring, Umbridge swiveled to face the board, which now said ' _Peeves was here.'_

"Who did that?" snapped Umbridge. No trace of a smile, fake or not, on her face.

"Look Professor, it answered your question," Ginny called out.

"Another detention, Miss Weasley," said Umbridge, toad face twisted in anger as she advanced on Ginny, wand forgotten on the table behind her. "I'll not—"

But she was cut off again, this time as Colin suddenly vomited spectacularly. Umbridge looked revolted, but walked over, though she didn't look sure what to do.

"Mr. Creevey, are you—" she started, only to draw back as Colin vomited again, drowning out the rest of her words with a series of loud retching noises.

The students closest to Colin all leaped back, hands, and the Snackboxes clenched in them, jumping up to their mouths. Ordinarily, this would merely have looked funny, but on this occasion, it was followed by a massive amount of nose bleeding, fainting, and vomiting that seemed to explode from all around Colin.

Using the students in that side of a room as a distraction, Ginny darted forward and stopped in front of Umbridge's desk. Quickly, she nudged Umbride's wand under a pile of papers and reached for the wand in her pocket. Her hand was halfway there when she paused. For the life of her, she could not remember what pocket the fake wand had been in.

She chanced a glance up at Umbridge, but she had frozen momentarily, apparently stunned by the amount of chaos going on around her. Quickly, Ginny looked back down and, picking a pocket at random, yanked a wand out of her pocket. The cloth wrapped around it told her that it was the fake one. Heaving an internal sigh of mingled relief and congratulations, she hastily unwrapped it and placed it about where Umbridge's real wand had been.

Then, just as quickly as she had come, she moved back into her chair. Though the whole thing had taken less than twenty seconds, Ginny looked around to see if she had been noticed.

She hadn't; it wasn't just half the room that had horrible symptoms happening to them anymore. Every single person (except Umbridge) in the room now had some kind of nosebleed, fever, fainting spell, or else were busy vomiting. All in all, even Ginny had to admit that the effect (not to mention the noise and smell) was overwhelming. Umbridge was dancing on the spot, trying to flick off some vomit that had someone had managed to land on her.

Ginny quickly stuffed half of the Nosebleed Nougat into her mouth. Almost instantly, blood started dripping gently out of her nose. Umbridge finally managed to turn toward her, suspicion written all over her face, and Ginny gave her the innocent, 'I-didn't-do-anything-but-I-have-nosebleed' look.

" ENOUGH!" shouted Umbridge, tearing her gaze away from Ginny and yelling in an attempt to be heard while she stormed back to her desk. Ginny's classmates didn't seem to have had enough yet though, and several of them seem to be having a contest of how far they could get their vomit to fly. Colin shouted piteously above the commotion that he had to go to the Hospital Wing, and another of the students staggered up in front of Umbridge and fainted.

"ENOUGH!" bellowed Umbridge, finally reaching her desk. "None of you need to go to the hospital wing."

Umbridge reached down to scoop up her wand; as soon as she touched it, it turned into a bright yellow rubber duck, which let out a loud quack. Ginny's classmates stared at it in surprise for a long moment, and then remembered that they were supposed to be dying and resumed their previous behavior.

Umbridge didn't quite scream, but Ginny judged that it was a close thing. Seething, Umbridge slammed the duck down upon her desk and started rooting around for the real one.

The class didn't like to be ignored, and the anarchy reached new heights. Many of the class were holding their noses and complaining loudly as blood continued to drop from their noses. Several people staggered over to the window and opened it, sweating heavily, though it was still cool in the castle. The people who had taken the fainting fancies, well, they mostly just lay there, but Ginny liked to think that they added just the right touch to the chaos.

Several loud bangs sounded off as Umbridge finally found her real wand, but they could barely be heard over the tumult, so the class disregarded it, and one of the braver people even stumbled over to Umbridge and threw up. Shrieking, Umbridge dropped her wand and leapt back.

She recovered quickly, leaping forward to grab her wand. Naturally, Umbridge managed to grab the fake wand again, which, for the second time, turned into a rubber duck.

"ENOGUH," yelled Umbridge, grabbing her real wand at brandishing it at the duck.

"ARRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGG" the duck made a horror-laden shriek as it burst into flames, and Ginny burst into a fit of the giggles at the look on people's faces when that happened.

"SHUT IT," screamed Umbridge, looking quite at the end of her tether. Sensing this, the class quieted down, and even the people who were busy being sick were doing so as quietly as possible. Those out of their seats hurried back, stepping over the piles of sick and fainted people that were in their way as they did so.

"Now, what is the problem?" said Umbridge, before quickly adding as half of the class started to speak, "Mr. Creevey."

Colin looked quite nonplussed as he looked around the room. Ginny noticed that he had somehow 'magically' managed to stop vomiting, though he was now sporting a nosebleed of fantastic proportions.

"Well, Professor," he said, holding his hand beneath his nose as blood dripped into it. "I think that we're all having symptoms of some sort."

Umbridge took a deep, deep breath, and held it for a long moment before letting it go.

"Can anyone else tell me what's caused this problem?" asked Umbridge.

Ginny raised her hand so fast that even Hermione would have been impressed.

"I think that it's caused by Umbridge-itis," Ginny offered, smilingly sweetly at Umbridge.

Umbridge started to brandish her wand at Ginny, but got her hands confused and instead waved the half-melted duck at her. "Miss Weasley, ten points from Gryffindor."

If Umbridge thought that this still mattered to them anymore, Ginny figured that she couldn't have seen the house points recently. There was a pool in the Gryffindor common room to see how soon Gryffindor would have no points. The outside bets were on a week.

"Miss Ward, maybe you can tell me what you're suffering from?" asked Umbridge, nostrils flailing as she took deep breaths.

"She's fainted," said Craig Williams, reaching over to feel Emily's pulse. "I think she's suffering from Umbridge-itis too"

"You were not asked, Mr. Williams," snapped Umbridge, squeezing the burnt duck tightly. It let out a soft squeal, which she ignored.

"I think my Umbridge-itis is getting worse," said Colin thickly, holding his nose. "Please, professor, can I go to the Hospital wing yet?"

"You are fine, Mr. Creevey!" shouted Umbridge, looking extremely frustrated now. "It is not possible for every single one of you to get sick all at once. Now, is someone going to tell me what is really happening here?"

"We all have Umbridge-itis," said someone, voice unrecognizable due to either a nosebleed or vomit, Ginny couldn't tell. Around Ginny, everyone was nodding in agreement.

"ENOUGH!" shrieked Umbridge, hand closes so tightly around the dick that it was now issuing a nonstop series of squeaks. "Is anyone here going to tell me what's really happening?"

"We told you, we have Umbridge-itis," said Ginny. "And I think I need to go to the hospital wing too."

Umbridge glared at her, then slowly at the rest of them room. It had calmed down a little from earlier, and most of the people had returned to their seats, but it was still looked as though someone had let a Skrewt into the classroom, and then everyone had defended themselves by vomiting at it.

"'Umbridge-itis' does not exist," Umbridge said, every word articulated clearly. "Everyone who does have 'Umbridge-itis' is lying, and liars deserve detention."

She glowered at the class, which all stared right back at her, minus the people who had fainted.

"Now that that is clear, does anyone have something else then Umbridge-itis?"

The class was silent, except for the occasional snuffle, rustle of clothing, and sound of someone being sick.

"DETENTION," screamed Umbridge, finally losing it. "IF YOU'RE GOING TO LIE, YOU"RE GOING TO GET WHAT'S COMING TO YOU."

'So, does that mean that I can go then?" asked Colin, looking very pale. "Because I feel worse than ever."

"Go," snarled Umbridge, pointing a stubby finger at him. "All of you get out, get out!"

The class needed no further urging, and they all quickly packed up and picked up the fainted people, dragging them out of the room. Ginny helped Craig Williams pick up Emily, and the three of them made their way out like some odd six-legged monster, leaving a very angry Umbridge to clean up the mess.

Once the door was safely shut behind them, Ginny reached into her pocket and crammed the other of the Nosebleed Nougat into her mouth. Her nose stopped bleeding instantly. Around her, her classmates were doing likewise, all looking very much like they had just been in a battle worthy of an epic story.

Ginny reached down into Emily's bag and rooted around until she found the other end of the Fainting Fancy, and stuck it into Emily's mouth. She came awake with a start, suddenly supporting her own weight.

"What happened?" she asked, then. "Did I faint?"

"We got out of class early, and yes," said Ginny.

Emily let out a muttered curse.

"If you excuse me," said Ginny, I need to go find Luna."

"Luna?" asked Emily. "Luna Lovegood? Why"

"She has class with Umbridge next," explained Ginny. "And I want to warn her about the Umbridge-itis."

And leaving Emily looking very confused, Ginny trotted off, grinning wildly.

* * *

 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed it. I know that it took a while for me to put out, but you should probably be well used to it by now.**

 **Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave a review.**


	9. Angelina (A lively Breakfast)

**A/N: the following is just a apology. Skip it if you don't feel like reading my apology.**

 **I owe a large apology to all who are following this. I know that it's been almost three(!) months since I've updated. I'm tempted to tell you that I was super busy, but I must not tell lies, so the truth was that I was just lazy. And then I had some hardware failure where I lost what little progress I had made, followed by a bout of procrastination, which led to a delay when I had problems uploading it to this site**

* * *

Fred and George's Skiving Snackboxes proved so successful that Umbridge, shrieking in aggravation, had been forced to let out all of her classes due to the illusive "Umbridge-itis" that had infected her classroom. The upshot of this, among other things, was that the Umbridge that Angelia spotted trudging into breakfast Saturday morning had never looked as frustrated as she now did. As had become habit, heads turned to look behind her, but for a change, Peeves wasn't in sight.

Angelina turned her gaze back onto Umbridge, who had already sat down and started to scoop some porridge into her bowl. As always when she saw Umbridge, Angelina involuntarily felt her hands curl up to fists, and quickly hid her hands under the table. Never mind Umbridge, McGonagall would undoubtedly have be having words with her if she caught Angelina looking like she might throttle Umbridge.

Angelina started a little as Alicia suddenly slid next to her. She hadn't noticed that Alicia was even in the hall.

"Morning," said Angelina, turning her back on Umbridge and watching her friend pour coffee into the nearest cup.

"Morning," mumbled Alicia into her cup, "Transfiguration today?"

"It's the weekend Alicia," said Angelina patiently, well used to the effect mornings had on her friend. "No lessons today."

"I knew that," said Alicia, after a long pause where she registered what had been said. She rubbed her eyes and took another long drink from her cup. "Why are you up so early then?"

"Oh, I was just thinking about how I was going to get revenge on Umbridge for neutering my Quidditch team," said Angelina, watching Alicia closely for her reaction.

"That's good," said Alicia absently, still too asleep to be paying much attention.

"Speaking of which, practice today, after lunch" said Angelina, glancing at the dark clouds gathering outside the windows and deciding not to call Alicia's attention to them. "Not that it's going to matter, Ravenclaw's going to flatten us next match."

"Hmm," said Alicia, draining the rest of her cup.

"I mean, they're usually not too bad, but this time...you know that's disgusting, right?"

For Alicia had just spat her coffee on the table, looking suddenly much more awake.

"Revenge on Umbridge?" said Alicia, scrubbing at the brown stains on the tablecloth with her fingers, her attention too focused on Angelina to notice that all she was doing was spreading it further. "What's she done now?"

"She ruined my team," said Angelina hotly, though inside she was smirking. It had taken Alicia less than half a minute to react this time, which was better than most times Angelina had tried pulled her leg.

"Angelina," said Alicia, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving them a little shake. "Tell me what happened."

"She kicked Fred, George, and Harry off my team!" said Angelina so loudly that the latter of these people looked up from where he was sitting with Ron and Hermione. "You should know that Alicia, you were there!"

Angelina," said Alicia, letting of Angelina's shoulders and speaking in a tone one would use when they were talking to a dangerously unstable person. "That was months ago!"

"So?" asked Angelina.

"You can't still be angry about it," said Alicia. Underneath the table, Angelina heard Alicia's foot start to tap, either a sign that she was starting to think, or else that all the coffee was starting to get to her, Angelina couldn't tell.

"Why can't I still be mad about it?" demanded Angelina, brandishing her hash brown at Alicia. "I'm of age, I'm allowed to do to anything I like."

"No you're not," contradicted Alicia. "You're not allowed to touch any skrewts anymore.

"I thought we agreed never to mention the skrewts again," said Angelina sharply, glancing over her shoulder to look up at where Hagrid was sitting at the staff table. She took a moment to compose herself, and then asserted, "I'm allowed to still be angry at Umbridge."

Alicia didn't argue, but shook her head and said, "Didn't your mother ever say something about not holding grudges?"

"I must have missed that lesson," said Angelina cheerfully, watching her friend finish off another cup of coffee. "So are you going to help me?"

"Help you with what?" asked Alicia, refilling her cup again while giving Angelina a suspicious look, like Angelina was going to suggest something that she wasn't going to like.

"Help me get revenge on Umbridge of course," Angelina told her. "Haven't you been listening?"

"You're going to get revenge today?" said Alicia. Her only reaction to her suspicions being confirmed was a brief eye roll. "Why?"

"Because today's the day I get revenge," said Angelina, as though this was perfectly obvious.

"Why do you want to revenge?" Alicia clarified.

"Weren't you listening to me?" said Angelina.

"Is it because Umbridge ruined your team?" said Alicia. She rolled her eyes again and continued, "Even though that was ages ago?"

"You have been listening to me then," said Angelina, fighting to keep a smirk off her face as she said this. She really shouldn't get as much of a kick out of leading Alicia on like this as she did, but she figured that she had already spent too much time around the Weasley Twins to ever recover now.

"You're pulling my leg, aren't you?" said Alicia, her toe tapping stopping suddenly. "This is too nonsensical, especially for you."

"'fraid I don't pull legs," said Angelina seriously, though it was ruined a little by her chuckling halfway though. She relented when Alicia gave her an exasperated look. "Okay, so I'm not out for revenge."

"I hear a 'but' in there somewhere..." prodded Alicia.

Angelina grinned at her; Alicia knew her too well.

"But if I see the opportunity, I'm taking it," she finished.

"You really shouldn't," said Alicia, though very half-heartedly, slumping back down into her seat again now that it was clear that Angelina wasn't being serious. "Take a look at Umbridge, don't you feel bad for her?"

Angelina twisted around in her seat again to look up at the Staff table. Umbridge was sitting on the Headmaster's chair, looking down at her Porridge, the eyes that had once swept the hall for any trivial reason to dock points now focused only on the food in front of her. The lines in her face seemed deep, and the deep bags under her eyes revealed just how tired she really was.

"Nope," said Angelina, looking back at Alicia. "Not one bit."

"Me neither," admitted Alicia, taking another gulp out of her cup and refilling it one motion. "But if I know you, you don't have anything planned yet, right?"

"Nope," admitted Angelina offhandedly.

"Then why even bother telling me?" asked Alicia, throwing her hands up in the air.

"To wake you up, of course," replied Angelina grinning at her friend. When Alicia gave her another exasperated look, Angelina continued "Considering everything that's happening to Umbridge, I think I'm allowed to be in a good enough mood to rile you up."

"Wish you were this relaxed on the Quidditch pitch," said Alicia shaking her head while she reached for her cup again.

Angelina ignored this, instead focusing on the owls that had just come soaring into the hall. Angelina watched a grey one carrying a newspaper glide down to where Hermione was, knocking over Ron's juice as it landed, which fell and stained the tablecloth orange. It, Angelina reflected as she watched Ron jump up and start swearing so loudly that two first years looked around in horror, was not a good day if you were a house elf whose job it was to remove stains from the house tables.

"You know," said Alicia, finally setting her coffee aside (though still within easy reach) and pulling a plate of scrambled eggs toward her, "Ravenclaw might not beat us. Their Beaters are nearly as bad as ours."

Angelina snorted. The only way the Ravenclaw Beaters could be as bad as Kirk and Sloper was if they were blind _and_ only had one hand, while flying brooms that were too old to fly in a straight line, and even than it would up for debate.

"Okay, but their hardly brilliant are they? And our Chasers are way better than theirs..."

That was true, Angelina thought, though their Keeper definitely played more—

"Peeves," said Alicia suddenly, nudging Angelina out of her thoughts. Sure enough, when Angelina twisted to look at the doors, Peeves had just entered the hall, grinning at people.

"What is he doing here?" Angelina heard Harry say. "He only comes during the feasts..."

The feasts, Angelina remembered with a jolt, that Dumbledore, who was widely acknowledged as the only teacher who could control Peeves, always presided over.

"Alicia, I believe the opportunity has come to make my discontent about the choice of headmistress clear," said Angelina, watching Peeves closely as he started slowly flying toward the staff table.

"What are you going to do?" asked Alicia, and then paused as a thought struck her. "Angelina, do you know what he's about to do? Did you plan this?"

"I have no clue what's about to happen," said Angelina with complete honesty.

"Good," said Alicia fervently, "because Katie would kill you, she's still mad at him for dumping ink all over her, says she still hasn't gotten all the ink out of her books..."

"Bet you a Knut that Peeves does something before he wakes up Umbridge." Angelina heard Ron tell either Harry or Hermione; she wasn't stupid enough to take her eyes off Peeves to see which one he was talking to.

"You're on," said Harry.

"Excellent," said Ron. "On an unrelated note, Hermione, could I borrow a Knut?"

"You don't have any money and you're gambling?" Angelina could hear the indignation in Hermione's hiss even without looking.

"I have the D.A. Gallon," said Ron defensively

"Did you see that?" whispered Alicia suddenly, as Peeves unhurriedly lifted up his hat and pulled out a bag, transferring it behind his back.

"Yes I saw that," muttered Angelina, though she wasn't sure why she was trying to be quiet, since the array of hands suddenly pointing at Peeve's back made it clear that a lot of people had seen it.

Peeves continued to move slowly and dramatically toward the silent staff table, where all the teachers (except Umbridge, whom appeared to have dozed off some time ago) were watching him so closely that they looked like their eyes might fall out. By unspoken consent, none of the teachers had told Peeves off yet, likely because his campaign against Umbridge had given him a little leeway where trouble was concerned.

As Peeves got to the halfway mark, Angelina got a clear look at the bag he was holding. Though most of it was covered by his hands, the parts of it that were visible moved, as if something, or somethings, was trying to claw its way out.

By the time that Peeves had reached the front of the staff table, only a few feet away from where Umbridge was sleeping, most of the hall had noticed how much the bag was moving, and was watching it almost as carefully as the teachers were watching Peeves.

"Grubs to you reckon?" asked Ron in a clearly audible voice.

Angelina rotated in her seat, moving her legs to the other side so that she didn't have to twist her back to look up at the staff table. Far from the whispering and general air of expectant excitement of that was on many of the students' faces, most of their faces looked guarded. McGonagall's face was set in an expression that would have sent lesser poltergeists fleeing, and even Hagrid, the man who would face a crateful of skrewts armed with nothing but uncontained glee, looked wary.

Peeves, without as much as a glance toward the people looking at him, flew forward so that he was only a foot or so in front of Umbridge (still the other teachers did nothing), and blew a loud raspberry.

Umbridge jerked upright, glancing around the room wildly as Peeves backed out of arm's reach.

"PEEVES," she bellowed, any trace of her signature sweetness erased by the sheer amount of trouble he had caused since Fred and George left.

"Yes?" said Peeves innocently as he could, though that wasn't saying much.

"What do you want now?" Umbridge shouted, standing up in an attempt to look tall, an effort that was doomed to failure from the beginning, since she was at the same table as Hagrid.

Peeves let out a trademark cackle and adopted his most respectful voice—that is to say, the oiliest voice Angelina had ever heard.

"I have a gift, headmistress," he said, floating up a few feet, so that Umbridge had to look up at him.

"A gift?" asked Umbridge suspiciously.

"A gift!" said Peeves, flying backward, so that he was directly over the Hufflepuff table. He performed a half summersault, so that he was facing Umbridge from between his legs. He stuck the bag, also between his legs, as though offering it to Umbridge. "See?"

A few of the sharper Hufflepuffs saw what was about to happen, but by the time they had started to react, it was far too late to get out of the way. Peeves upturned the bag, and out tumbled about a dozen black objects that Angelina only recognized once they had hit the table. About a dozen Tarantulas, much bigger than the Muggle kind, all lay in a pile where they had landed, slowly standing up and walking a few steps toward the students.

The hall's reaction was more energetic. There was a suddenly a chaotic movement across the hall as all the students tried to simultaneously get far enough away to be very certain that they were out of reach of the spiders, but still manage to be close enough to see what was happening. Naturally, this led to a large number of collisions as people slammed into each other in their haste to get further away.

The uproar at the staff table was calmer. Most of the teachers remained seated, eating calmly, though they were obviously keeping an eye on the situation in front of them, making sure it didn't go too far. Hagrid was the exception, descending into the mess of students, yelling "Don' hurt em', don' hurt em'."

"Watch out, their venomous," shouted Angelina helpfully, standing up and raising her own wand, as everyone else on her side of the table jumped, leaped, vaulted, or crawled under the table toward the wall in order to as far away as they could from the spiders. Angelina had little doubt that at least some of them would be trying to get out of the room, if only the whole area in front of the doorway wasn't blocked by students already.

Alicia, vaulted back over the table, any annoyance for having to do it twice in a less than ten seconds kept remarkably well concealed.

"They're not venomous," she said, readying her wand. Angelina felt a surge of affection that Alicia would join her in what was bound to be an obvious recipe for possible detention, but decided to thank her later.

"Shush," Angelina told her she pointed her wand at the spiders, and, after checking that the path in front of her was reasonably clear of Hufflepuffs (after all, not checking would have been irresponsible) and whispered, " _Engorgio"_

She winced as her spell almost hit Justin Finch-Fletchley, but managed to get over it in time to see her chosen spider grow bigger than a dinner plate.

"Angelina," said Alicia in a warning tone. Apparently her going along with this plan did not involve massive spiders being mutated to be larger.

Before Alicia could say anything else, Angelina used a simple levitation spell to make the spider fly up in the air, and then, as Peeves started to swoop down to grab it, sent it flying toward Umbridge.

Even over the noise of people shouting at their friends to move, the warnings of them being venomous and Hagrid's apologies as he knocked people over, Umbridge's scream could be heard quite clearly. In a display of agility that surprised Angelina, Umbridge managed to beat the spider away with her hand, hitting it with enough force to send it clear over to the far side of the Gryffindor table, right in front of where Ron was cowering next to the wall.

Ron's response was violent. With an astonishing amount of speed, he leapt forward, sized a pan of bake beans, and brought it down on the spider with as much force as he could muster, sending beans flying over those closest to him.

Angelina managed to get the spider out of the way before the pan hit it, but her quick wand movement jerked the spider further than she meant to, sending gliding through the air until it managed to cling onto Ernie Macmillan's back, who was trying to shepherd people toward the doors. Hannah Abbot, directly behind him, screamed and smashed at it with a plate, while Justin whipped out his wand and pointed it at the spider.

Angelina wasn't quite able to follow what happened next, but it ended with Ernie on the floor, groaning, and the spider, somehow turned purple and now larger than ever, landed near the end of the Hufflepuff table, near where some of the other spiders were still lying in a pile. Before Angelina could levitate it for round two, Peeves had swooped down and seized it and two more, floating up again and pelting them at Umbridge, who had the sense this time to levitate them down to the floor, where she hexed them, yelling furiously all the while.

Angelina, giving up on the spiders now that Umbridge was prepared for it, had another bright idea. Taking careful aim, she shot a Jelly-Legs Jinx toward the spiders. Sadly, it 'missed' and managed to hit Warrenton, a Slytherin Chaser, and a prominent (mostly because of his large size) member of the Inquisitorial Squad.

"Oops," said Angelina, grinning at the sight of Warrenton collapsing to the ground, his legs no longer supporting his weight. She glanced around at her fellow Gryffindors still backed up against the wall, and another, brighter idea came to her.

She turned back to Alicia, who saw her grinning and paused in the middle of her own Levitation Spell to mumble, "oh no."

"Gryffindors!" called Angelina, in what she liked to call her captain voice. "GET THEM."

With a roar that would have scared the pants off of a troll, her fellow Gryffindors fumbled for their wands and shot large variety of jinxes, hexes, and other imaginative spells Angelina wouldn't have thought to use. About three quarters of them actually aimed for the spiders, but about a dozen or so spells flew right toward the Inquisitorial squad members.

People started screaming, partly from the spells now whizzing around the room (for some others, getting the idea, had drawn out their own wands and were now whipping out spells like Umbridge was detentions) and partly because Peeves, finally abandoning his efforts to land a spider on the now well prepared Umbridge, had started picking up the spiders who looked like they were still moving and dumping them directly onto the middle of the crowd.

"ENOUGH PEEVES" screamed Umbridge, so angry that she was actually jumping up and down on the spot, rather as if she had a full bladder. It was remarkable, thought Angelina, how when she got angry, her voice reached just the right pitch to carry even over a crowd like this. "STOP THIS INSTANT, OR I SHALL—"

What she was about to do, the room never found out, for a Stunner somehow managed to miss the spiders (by a margin of forty feet) and hit Umbridge right in the chest. Still in mid-rant, she slumped down into her chair.

There was a brief cheer at this, but many people were too busy dealing with the spells now filling the air, or else handling whatever minor jinx they had been hit with, to really notice Umbridge going down. Angelina winced a little as she saw some not so minor jinxes being used, but it was too late to take back her actions, which, she had to admit to herself, really had been rather inspired.

Up at the staff table, the teachers finally seemed to decide that the spells where getting a little out of hand, and McGonagall stood up with her wand at the ready. With a single wave, she extinguished all the candles, plunging the hall into a semi-dark state, with the only light now coming from the dim light filtering through the dark clouds outside.

The spells died down as quickly as people tried to get used to the relative darkness of the hall. The last few spells bounced around, looking a lot like one of Fred and George's fireworks. The hall quieted down as people started whispering, wondering what had happened.

"Where are they?" Angelina heard Ron ask, only a slight quiver in his voice.

"I think they're gone mate," said Harry soothingly, the beans in his hair making it lie flat, a sight which Angelina thought was the most disconcerting thing she had seen all day.

"Thank you Peeves, I daresay that you've caused quite enough trouble for the moment," said McGonagall, voice ringing out in the suddenly much quieter hall.

Peeves stuck out his tongue, but went out through the crowded doors, throwing the two spiders that were in his hands up in the air before leaving. Angelina had little doubt that he had left more because his supply of spiders was nearly gone than any real urge to obey McGonagall.

"Prefects, if you would take charge and take any of your jinxed classmates to the hospital wing," said McGonagall, relighting the candles with another wave of her wand. "Filius, if you would be so kind as to take out Headmistress to the Hospital wing as well?"

Flitwick looked a little disappointed, but almost as soon as he had turned toward Umbridge, a thought appeared to come to him, for he eagerly turned back to McGonagall, much as toddler to a parent would.

"Yes Filius, I think that you should tell Madam Pomfrey to make sure she stays overnight before she gets up again," said McGonagall, a rare smile on her face.

There was a cheer at this as the people who could still move celebrated. Soon after, a line had formed at the doors as the people who had been jinxed started toward the Hospital wing, Flitwick bringing up the rear, floating Umbridge behind him in a conjured stretcher.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," said Angelina as she sat down to finish eating breakfast.

"You could have warned me about what you were about to do to the spiders," said Alicia reproachfully. "I almost screamed when you made that one bigger."

"Why didn't you? It would have scared everyone more," said Angelina.

"And why did you yell at everyone to start shooting spells?" demanded Alicia. "People could have gotten hurt for real."

"Because it gave me a chance to Stun Umbridge," said Angelina, taking a bite of her now cold hash brown.

"That was you?" asked Alicia eagerly, before she made a conscious effort to look disapproving. "I mean...you shouldn't have done that."

"C'mon, you enjoyed it," said Angelina, nudging her friend in her ribs.

There was a long pause while Angelina watched her friend struggle to not let a smile through.

"Maybe a little," admitted Alicia, after a long pause. "I said a little!" she added as Angelina broke into laughter.

Alicia glared at Angelina long enough for Angelina's laughter to subside to chuckles before Alicia finally allowed a grin to break out.

This, thought Angelina as she burst into renewed laughter, was the start of a very good day.

* * *

 **A/N: that's it for now, though I have hopes that I'll start updating on my semi-regular basis. Again, please accept my apologies for this taking such a long time for this to come out.**

 **And if you've made it this far, thanks for reading.**


	10. Susan (A Unusual Encounter)

**A/N: See, I'm still updating. based on the current schedule of updates, I have high hopes that Ill finish this before five years are up.**

* * *

Susan knew that a lot of people didn't take her seriously, that her attitude and frequent, unusual squawk of a laugh that she was only the slightest bit self-conscious about often made people think that she could be safely ignored, that she was just another background character in their life.

This meant, of course, that they would never see her coming. After all, who would suspect Susan Bones, happy little Hufflepuff, when there were haughty, nasty Slytherins around?

And she was stalking the haughtiest, most arrogant of them all.

Susan got a few strange looks as she stalked Blaise Zabini down the fourth floor corridor. She wasn't sure why they were even looking at her, as she was being incredibly stealthy about it. She doubted that even Moody himself could have picked her out of the crowd. She had once spent an afternoon at her auntie's house, learning how the Aurors tailed people without them noticing. She was as stealthy as an owl on the hunt, as unnoticed as a flobberworm, and twice as quiet as the room got when Severus Snape entered the room. She was the pinnacle of stealth.

"Are you following Zabini?" asked a dreamy voice, and Susan turned, surprised, to see long, scraggily blond hair and popping eyes. "Because if you are, I'd make sure that he doesn't see you. He doesn't like it when people follow him."

"What?" Susan asked the fly, reflexively taking a few steps back before realising who it was. "Luna?"

"No, Zabini," corrected Luna.

"Zabini?" said Susan, bemused.

"I'm Luna," said Luna, as though this wasn't obvious.

"What?" said Susan, very confused now. One look at Luna's eyes, and she decided the best thing to do was to just move on. "How'd you know that I was stalking Zabini?"

"Weren't you following him?" Luna said, staring at Susan in a decidedly uncomfortable manner.

"Um," said Susan, craning her head to look at Zabini, but he had already rounded the corner. "I prefer the term stalking."

"Stalking does have a nice ring to it," said Luna, looking at the ceiling above Susan in an extremely interested way. Susan glancing above her, checking for Peeves, but didn't see anything.

"Um," said Susan again, as seconds dragged by. Luna was still staring at the ceiling. "Is there something above me?"

"Oh yes," said Luna serenely. "I wouldn't move if I were you."

Susan froze. She had been in Hogwarts for far too long to think that a creature right above her head was a good thing. She had also learned that encounters with creatures came in two varieties. The first one was the one where you stayed still and prayed for the best, and the other was where you ran away and prayed for the best.

"Is it gone?" she asked after a few minutes of staying stiller than was humanly possible. Luna was still standing there, eyes above Susan's head. Susan couldn't be sure, but she was fairly certain that Luna hadn't even blinked yet.

"Oh, you want me to get rid of him for you?" said Luna in surprise. "Don't worry, I'll get it."

Susan was momentarily reassured, until Luna started waving her hands above Susan's head. In Susan's vast experience, whacking a creature was never good procedure.

Susan decided to take her chances moving. Taking a hasty breath, she rushed forward, ducking down to avoid the creature's retribution. It missed. Susan stood upright, whirling around, prepared to hide behind Luna.

There was nothing there, except for Luna still waving her arms around where Susan had been, and a number of students passing them, all looking at Luna with bemused expressions on their faces.

"There's nothing there," said Susan in disbelief. Luna stopped her arm waving and turned around to face Susan.

"Eyes can't see them," said Luna, simply. But if you're paying attention, you might be able to feel them."

"There's nothing there," said Susan again. She wasn't sure if she should be taking Luna to the hospital wing to get her help, or to be congratulating her for playing a spectacular practical joke.

"I think we scared him off," said Luna, taking a step back and eyeing the spot. "I don't think he got you."

Susan stared at her, speechless. If this was a practical joke, this was going too far. Jokes shouldn't involve making someone worry if they had to go the hospital wing.

"Oh, did the Wrackspurt get you after all?" aside Luna, sounding vaguely worried. "There's something for this..."

She dug in her bag, which, Susan was slightly taken aback to see, had many items in it which Susan had no name for. Susan had gotten the impression from others in the D.A. that Luna was a little odd, but this was something quite beyond what she had expected.

"I'm alright," said Susan, before Luna had time to pull out anything. "Really," she added hurriedly, as Luna kept rooting around in her bag. Luna looked up, still looking surprised, but relented, letting her bag back down.

Susan looked around as she remembered what she was doing here in the first place. Zabini was nowhere to be seen, nor were there was anyone to see. The corridor was quite deserted by now, as all the students had already reached wherever they wanted to go.

"Bugger," said Susan, more disappointed than angry.

Luna looked at her as if she was a rather interesting sort of plant, put otherwise didn't react to this.

"Well, I guess there's always tomorrow," said Susan.

"It usually comes," agreed Luna.

Susan almost asked her about the 'usually' part, but quickly decided against it.

"Still, I wished that I could've gotten him today, you know?" said Susan.

"What were you going to do to him?" said Luna, staring out of the window.

"Well," said Susan, hesitating, before impulsively deciding that she could trust Luna with it. "I was going to shrink as many of his housemate's underpants as possible, then blame it on him."

Susan tried not to laugh at her own words, she really did, but she couldn't quite restrain herself. It started with a little squawk, but soon progressed to an all out laugh.

"Sorry, sorry," spluttered Susan, as soon as she was able to speak again. "It's just funny, you know? Can you picture his face?"

Luna was still looking out of the window, but she nodded.

"I'm sorry," said Susan, as she finally regained her breath. "Some people find me a little odd."

"Oh that's alright," said Luna vaguely, finally looking back at Susan. "I'm a little odd too. Actually, some people call me Loony Lovegood."

Susan really tried not to laugh this time, but a squawk came out before she had a chance to clamp her mouth shut with her hands.

"I'm really sorry," said Susan, voice muffled by her hands. "I didn't mean it, I swear."

"Oh it's ok," said Luna, staring at Luna. "That happens a lot."

"No, it's not ok," said Susan firmly. "I shouldn't have laughed."

Luna was again looking out of the window. Susan felt something, an angry something. Just because someone was a little odd didn't give anyone the right to bully them. Her family had always stood up for people, and Susan felt, just then, that she couldn't do any less for her fellow D.A. member.

"Do you want to help me?" asked Susan.

Luna looked back at Susan, humming under her breath as she considered.

"I think I'd like that," said Luna dreamily, readjusting the strap of her bag.

They set off along the corridor. Though Susan felt that Luna wasn't quite as stealthy as her, she had to admit that she did feel a little better about having someone along with her. She could have asked Hannah or one of the others, but they just didn't seem to be the right people for the job. Luna, on the other hand, thought Susan as they strolled along the corridor, was so odd that no one would believe that she had anything to do with it.

Susan turned the corner, feeling more confident by the moment.

* * *

Five minutes later, Susan realized that there was a slight hole in her plan. A tiny one, hardly noticeable, but—

"You were following Zabini because you didn't know where he was going," said Luna. From anyone else this would have been an accusation, but from her it was delivered more like slightly miffed maternal grandmother. Except that it wasn't from a grandmother. And Luna didn't really sound miffed. And that Luna definitely wasn't what Susan thought of when she thought of maternal.

"A little bit," said Susan, stopping at the landing on top of the seventh floor. "I mean, only a very little bit.

"That's ok," said Luna, staring at the portrait of Sir Cadogan. At the moment he was slumbering, a fact that Susan was deeply thankful for. "We just have to find him."

"I'm sorry," said Susan, looking at the floor. "I spent too much time researching the spell to actually think this far ahead."

Susan felt a slight sense of shame. She could well imagine what her auntie would say if she saw Susan rushing ahead again without thinking it through.

"We could ask the portraits!" said Luna, eyes bugging out more than usual in her excitement. "They can see all over the place! There's a spell over the castle that lets the portraits see everything thing!"

"Are you sure?" asked Susan, sceptical. She'd never heard anything remotely like this before.

"It was part of the Flucreep Conspiracy, from the Goblin Rebellions," said Luna, gently pushing Susan aside to stand in front of Sir Cadogan and pulling out her wand. "You know, when the house-elves were secretly having Goblins sneaked in by spreading the cold to all the portraits!"

Susan laughed, but stopped when Luna's expression didn't change.

"You're serious?" started Susan, very confused again, but Luna was already talking to the portrait.

"Sir Cadogan, Sir Cadogan," said Luna, prodding the portrait gently with her wand. "We have a quest!"

At the last word, the knight jerked awake from where he was napping against his fat pony. He made to get up, and immediately stumbled, but by using the pony for support, he managed to pull himself to his feet.

"Did I hear that a quest was sought?" He attempted to lift his helmet's visor, only to have it fall down as soon as he removed his hand. He tried again, with the same result. Giving up, he turned attention on Luna and Susan, one whom was acting as normal as she got, while the other was remembering the last time she had met Sir Cadogan, and was desperately wishing that he would accidently knock himself out again.

"A person is missing, and he must be found!" said Luna seriously, watching as the pony stretched his legs and wandered into the portrait to the right without Cadogan's noticing.

"A friend has been lost!" cried Sir Cadogan loudly. "Then by all means we must seek him out, before it is too late to save him! Come gentle ladies, for we have a long descent before us yet if we are to find your friend!"

"He's not that," said Susan hastily.

"I see," said the knight, turning to her. "Perhaps dear comrade might be fairer on your ears?"

"Definitely not," said Susan.

"Ah," said Sir Cadogan, taken aback. "Mayhap an associate be more accurate?"

"Not really."

"I see," said the knight, trying to finger his moustache and only succeeding in getting his hand caught in his visor. He thought for a moment. "A person?" he suggested had last.

Susan considered it for a moment.

"Nah," she said at last. "He's more of an enemy."

"A quest of righteous vengeance then!" shouted the knight, pulling out his sword, overbalancing, and managing to get it stuck in the ground in one movement. "We must find this villain and end his evil ways! Be of stout heart my friends, for we shall not rest until he has met his demise!"

"Oh, I wouldn't call him that," said Luna, looking at Susan like a miffed maternal grandmother. "He's more of a—"

"An enemy," said Susan, nodding, "A bloodthirsty vampire-troll who wears too small underpants, and has giant venomous fangs."

There Susan broke off, laughing at her own description. To her surprise, she saw that Luna was laughing as well, hard enough that she was actually rocking back and forth. Sir Cadogan was watching them both and looking as if he was the only sane person in the room, which was very likely a first.

"I fear I see no cause for laughter—" he started, but Luna cut him off.

"Vampire...troll," she gasped, clutching her side. She peeled off into laughter so hard that Susan didn't hear the footsteps until they had already reached the landing.

Blaise Zabini, her worst enemy, was there in the flesh. His shiny badge with the silver Inquisitorial Squad badge on it glinted on the front of his robe, signalling how untouchable he was.

Well, Susan would see about that.

"I was wondering who was dying," he said, scowling at Luna as she finally stopped laughing, and stood there, breathless, watching Zabini and Susan. "I see it's just the lunatic. Oh, look, the knight's here too."

"Hey," started Susan angrily. "You watch your—"

"Mouth?" suggested Zabini smoothly. "That's very good advice. Perhaps you should even listen to it, Bones."

He sneered as he said her last name.

"Is this the person the quest was to find?" said Sir Cadogan from his portrait. "I find him of a most unpleasant disposition."

"Aren't you missing a horse?" jeered Zabini. The knight turned around so fast he lost his balance. When he managed to claw himself upright, he gasped and started running through the portrait to the left of his, calling for his pony.

"Now was there a reason why you were calling me a 'vampire-troll,' Bones?" said Zabini, staring at right at her, a grin on his face that told Susan that no matter what she did, Hufflepuff was bound to lose points.

Susan resisted the urge to swear horribly. It wasn't supposed to go like this. She was supposed to catch him by surprise, and then fade away before he ever realized that she was there. Now it was ruined.

"Well Bones?" prodded Zabini, obviously enjoying the moment, "anything to say in your defence?"

Susan's self-restraint failed for a moment, and she called Zabini something that would have made Professor Sprout give her detention for a month. Zabini looked slightly taken back at the venom in her voice, and even Susan was a little startled that it had slipped out. Luna, on the other hand, started humming dreamily to herself and righted the portrait in front of her.

"Twenty points from Hufflepuff," said Zabini, "and ten more points for trying to find me, as you were obviously up to no good. And when you try it again, it'll be a lot more," he threatened, as Susan felt her eyes narrow.

They glared at each other, neither of them willing to look away, until Luna spoke up from where she was still examining the portrait.

"You know, if you don't blink for longer than a minute, you can see Heliopaths," said Luna, still not looking at them. "Otherwise they don't trust you."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," said Zabini breaking eye contact with Susan and eying Luna like he would a revolting, half-dead fish, "so much that I'm actually worried that consorting with Bones has permanently lowered your intelligence."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about me," said Luna, as she continued to examine the portrait. "You should worry about this portrait. I think that it has the flu again."

Zabini didn't respond to that, possibly because the amount of sane responses to that was rather limited.

"Again?" asked Susan, quite forgetting about Zabini for a second. "When was the first time?"

"I can't say for certain," Luna frowned gently at the portrait.

"Enough of this nonsense," said Zabini. "I, apparently unlike the two of you, have actual work to do. Ten more points from Hufflepuff, for corrupting a fellow student."

Susan clenched her fist angrily, but Zabini was already walking past her, unable to keep a triumphant grin fully off his face.

Zabini stopped when he was next to Luna, casting an apprising look at her.

"Oh, and ten points from Ravenclaw for accepting in a lunatic," said Zabini, before he started to walk off again. Susan felt something snap inside her. Hufflepuff being docked points was one thing, but taking points from Ravenclaw when Luna had done literally nothing was going too far.

Before she could stop herself she had pulled out her wand and muttered, " _Attenuavi_ _underpants!"_

She saw Zabini stop suddenly in his tracks before turning back to face them. Instead of the usual air of haughtiness, he suddenly looked a lot like a toddler who had to go to the bathroom.

"What did you do?" Zabini's eyes were suddenly wide. He caught himself before he let anymore slip out. He straightened up and did his best to walk away casually. Susan was about to taunt him, when his composure broke and he positively fled down the corridor. Susan's taunt stopped in her mouth, transformed into a cheek-hurting laughter.

By the time Susan had hiccupped her way back to seriousness, Luna had abandoned the portrait-healing and was looking at her in a rather concerned manner.

"Oh, I see the Wrackspurt got you after all," she sighed, reaching into her bag and pulling out a very sharp looking object.

Susan stopped laughing immediately.

"I'm fine!" she said hastily, before Luna had time to touch her.

"I know," said Luna, as though this was obvious. "I just fixed you."

And she put the object back into her bag.

Susan eyed Luna, unsure if she was being had. Was this Luna's idea of a practical joke? Or did Luna really believe in Wrackspurts?

"Don't worry," said Luna, as she walked over and patted Susan's hand. "They probably shouldn't bother you anymore."

"Thanks," said Susan, still unsure if she was being had or not. "And thanks for coming with me as well. Even if we didn't accomplish what I wanted to."

Luna shrugged, as if this didn't matter.

"That's alright," she said. "It's not so bad."

And with that she drifted off, as if that was all there was to say on the manner.

Susan could only shake her head, helpless before the weirdness, or possible genius, that was Luna Lovegood.

Susan wasn't sure which one it was, but she was going to find out one of these days.


	11. Anthony (A distraction from homework)

Anthony sighed despairingly and looked up from his half finished essay, itchy eyes sweeping the common room as he ran his hand over his head, feeling the short bristles there. Around him, his fellow fifth years were showing similar signs of desperation and exhaustion. With the O.W.L.s rapidly coming up, all of them were working around the clock, interrupted only by those brief rifts in time when they slept.

Anthony groaned slightly as looked at his watch; it was almost midnight. He looked around the room hopelessly, his gaze finally settling onto the seats that contained Terry and Michael.

Or rather, the seats that should contain Terry and Michael, if they hadn't been busy being empty. He hadn't seen them since dinner, and he was feeling slightly irritated at them for abandoning him. They wouldn't help him complete his work any faster, but the sight of Terry wanting to slam his head onto the table would do wonders for Anthony's morale.

"Lisa," he prodded the girl closest to him with his Transfiguration book. "Have you seen Michael and Terry?"

"Not since dinner," Lisa Turpin looked up and pulled off her half-rim glasses, laying them on the table. She looked up at Anthony, eyes slightly bloodshot with lack of sleep. "I thought they'd be here by now."

She checked her watch and groaned when she saw how late it was. Anthony ignored her, for the two they had just been discussing walked into the common room, grins unconcealed on their faces.

"What happened?" he asked them. Of course, it was pretty easy to guess what had happened, given their grins, Terry's utter disregard of rules, and Michael's almost Gryffindorish nature.

"Disrupting Umbridge's affairs," said Terry, winking at Lisa, whose head had snapped upward with interest; hers wasn't the only too. Most of the room were now looking at Terry, eager to distract themselves from their homework.

"You see," said Michael, turning to the room and abandoning any pretence of just talking to Anthony. "Craig Edwards, a recent recruit of the 'Inquisitorial squad' was delayed after dinner tonight."

"Sorry you weren't there mate," said Terry to Anthony. "It was a once in a lifetime opportunity—well, maybe not, but we couldn't just wait for someone to get you."

Anthony waved him on. Though he had to admit, part of it was fun, most of his job was to prevent them from getting into trouble. For being a Ravenclaw, sometimes Terry really didn't use his brain. To be fair, Michael got into a more than a bit amount of trouble as well, but he usually thought about it first.

" _You see, after we left dinner, we spotted Craig Edwards—"_

"Hang on," said Terry. "I thought it was Craig Evans?"

"No," said Michael. "It's definitely Edwards."

"Are you sure?" asked Terry.

This time Michael didn't have to answer. Multiple people in the room mumbled disagreement.

"I'm pretty sure that it's Evans." said Terry. "C'mon, Lisa? Padma? You know I'm right."

Padma shook her head, characteristically quiet, but Lisa said loudly, "Nah, its Edwards."

"Where was I?" asked Michael.

"You'd spotted Craig Edwards," Anthony said, noting Terry shaking his head, and Anthony predicted that he wasn't nearly ready to concede defeat this easily.

"Right," said Michael, brightening up. "So we'd just spotted Craig Edwards and—"

"Or Evans, possibly," Terry spoke up, grinning at his friend in a way that Anthony knew was only partially motivated by wanting the perfect truth.

Michael rubbed his forehead silently for a moment before continuing the story.

" _Anyway, we spotted Craig, and we noticed that he was alone. So we said to ourselves 'this is just the opportunity we've been waiting for.'"_

"We didn't actually say that," Terry revealed to the crowd. Michael seemed to have had enough of the interruptions though, because he wheeled to face his friend.

"Terry, I know we're mates, but do you mind?"

"That's not how it happened!" said Terry, as Michael rubbed his forehead again. Anthony shot a glance at Terry, and knew from the smile on Terry's face that he was sensing the pending argument, and that he was already rather enjoying driving Michael up the wall.

Anthony cleared his throat, to head it off before it could gain any steam. Partially because an argument, friendly or not, would take a while, and partially because he gained just as much satisfaction from preventing Terry from arguing as Terry got from getting people to argue with him.

"Why don't we just have both of you tell us you're version of events," he suggested sensibly. "Because, in case you've forgotten, most of us of us have too much homework to do to waste time sitting here and watching you argue, enjoyable as that would be."

"Ooh, the perfect power is exercised," said Terry, grinning at Anthony now, but Anthony refused to be baited. He knew he had to control Terry if he, and his fellow fifth years, would have any hope of finishing their homework tonight.

"Yes, let's do that," said Michael, eager to finish his story without being told that it was wrong.

Terry opened his mouth to argue, but Padma, seeing what was happening, spoke swiftly. "That's a good idea. Anyone else think so?"

Seeing where it was going, Su Li set down her quill and raised her hand. Catching on, most of the room followed suit, and Terry's grin faded a little.

"Well, when in Hogsmeade..." He sighed, that sat down on the edge of the table, giving Michael his full attention. "Tell on, my fine fellow."

"Well," started Michael. _"We were just leaving the Divination classroom right before dinner, when..."_

"Hang on," said Terry. "You're starting there?"

"Well, I thought that, since that's the beginning, it'd be a good place to start," said Michael, putting a hand in his pocket where he kept his wand.

"Most stories do start at the beginning," agreed Anthony. "It's traditional."

"No they don't!" said Terry, but deflated under the look Anthony gave him. "I mean, I guess _some_ do..."

"I don't know how you manage to quiet him down like that," marvelled Michael, looking up from where he had been kneading his forehead again.

"Practice, and a decent left eyebrow," said Anthony. "But do continue, or we'll be a bit light on the sleep tonight."

"Right," said Michael. "Well..."

 _We had just left the Divination classroom and were crossing to the Great Hall, when Peeves—"_

Peeves didn't do what you think he's going to do," Terry told the crowd. Michael rounded on him.

"Do you want to tell the story first?" he demanded, antagonized beyond endurance.

"Yes," said Terry.

"Oh," said Michael, taken aback. "Well, then go ahead then."

"You'd better be careful," Anthony warned Terry. "Or Michael will get desperately angry with you."

"Or possibly, I'll just get angry," said Michael. "There won't be anything desperate about it."

Terry just grinned and started to speak.

" _We had just left the great hall, after a long and wholesome meal, when we saw Craig Evans had just left as well. Of course, never being ones to pass up an opportunity like this, we started talking to Evens. "_

"His name is Edwards," interrupted Michael. "At least tell it right."

"Please, let me tell my story," said Terry, with just a little bit of emphases on _my_.

 _He looked a little confused when we started talking to him, the shiny new Inquisitorial badge twinkling in the candlelight showing that that he had just joined the inquisitorial squad, the great prat."_

"I'm glad to see that this is going to be an impartial retelling," said Mandy Brocklehurst, stone-faced, though Anthony noted that a hint of a grin could be seen around her eyes.

"That's how it happened," said Terry, raising one finger at Mandy. "Now if I can continue before the narrative flow is shredded even further?"

" _Anyway, I, and my faithful sidekick, rushed in to take advantage of his confusion. While I distracted him with some fancy talk about the value of salamander fur, Mike convinced the Fat Friar to lead half of Hufflepuff house by. In the confusion, I grabbed Evans and pushed him into the divination classroom. When he asked why, I told him that I had once seen that wandering groups of Hufflepuffs literally eat a wandering Slytherin. When this failed to convince him, Mike sent in the Nearly Headless Nick, who put on a masterful performance of someone who had just seen a Slytherin get devoured by the band of marauding Hufflepuffs."_

" _Naturally, this put him on edge, but I reassured him that we weren't on different sides. I revealed a number of occasions that I, myself, had personally stopped Hufflepuffs from eating passing Slytherins."_

" _Once I had convinced him of the truth of these dreadful Hufflepuffs attacks, Evans got all in a huff and wanted very dearly to take revenge on the evil Hufflepuffs. Luckily, I managed to stop him before he did anything Gryffindorish, and convinced him to take a look at who could possibly want to kill Slytherins."_

"Umbridge?" guessed Helena Montgomery, a slightly disturbing smile on her face.

"Seriously, does no one have appreciation for narrative flow, for climaxes?" said Terry. "Aside from Padma, I mean."

Padma raised an eyebrow, but quickly looked down at her homework, still too uncomfortable with all of the people in this room to talk more than she had to.

"I do," said Michael, raising his hand halfway. "I mean, I didn't interrupt, though you keep getting my name wrong, and that's not even mentioning that bits of the story that are completely fal—"

"On with the story then," cried Terry, plunging on.

" _It took him a couple of guesses, among them the whole of Gryffindor house, their various pets, and the giant squid, but eventually guided him to the correct answer. Umbridge, of course, was the only reasonable answer, and once he realized this, Evens was all ready to start a one-man war against the whole of Hufflepuff house, and through them, Umbridge."_

" _Naturally, this was boarding on suicidal, so I advised him that he would be better directed to find a better way. Mike burst in just then, and together, the three of us sorted out what would convince Umbridge to stop these horrible Slytherin attacks."_

"And he really thought that Umbridge was out to get him?" asked Lisa, raising one eyebrow above her half-rim glasses.

"Well, actually," started Michael, but Terry cut him off again.

"By the end, I convinced him it was so," admitted Terry, looking around the room as if daring anyone to disagree with him.

Anthony grinned to himself as he opened his mouth to speak. He didn't have any actual proof that Terry wasn't telling the truth, but he knew that Terry wasn't going to take that chance.

Sure enough...

" _ANYWAY, Evens was eager to get back at Umbridge, so we spent an hour or so sorting through what he could do. We ran through hundreds of ideas, maybe even thousands, but in the end, after we had thrown out all the shoddy ones, the mediocre ones, and the ones that were so bad that I nearly gagged on them, Mike suggested then that we start our own rumour mill. If nothing else, the three of us agreed that, if nothing else, it would distract her."_

" _It was then, right after that, that he started coming to his senses. Naturally, any sane person could see that it was extremely unlikely that Umbridge was behind the attacks on the Slytherins. Mike thought that we had caused enough damage for one night, but I had another idea. Quite a cunning one I might add."_

" _You see, it occurred to me who else might be out to get Slytherins. It hit me, just then. It was obvious, so obvious that I was stunned I hadn't thought of it before. God I'm thirsty."_

"I beg your pardon?" asked Kevin Entwhistle, who, knowingly or not, had been so engrossed in the story that he was leaning forward.

"I haven't had anything to drink for hours, and I've talked myself to death and back again. Any chance there's water around?"

Su Li rolled her eyes, but picked up her wand and floated a cup over from the table closest to the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw.

"Thank you," said Terry, catching it and downing the whole cup in a second.

Su merely shook her head in a rather exasperated manner, looking down at her transfiguration homework.

"Anyway do you know what I did?"

"Well, We've come this far, haven't we?" said Lisa, leaning forward in her seat again.

"Well, if you insist," said Terry.

" _Well, I was a complete idiot not to think of it before. It was the answer to all of our problems. Sure, it would be a bit tricky to convince him, and it took a while, but would you believe that I convinced him that Umbridge was actually the reincarnation of Godric Gryffindor?"_

No," said Anthony flatly. He knew that he was being a little obnoxious, but after all that Terry put Michael through, Terry deserved it.

"Huh," said Terry, lowering his finger. "Would you believe that I convinced him that Umbridge was being possessed by the enchanted bracelet of Gryffindor?"

"No," said Anthony.

"Oh," said Terry. "How she had once read a book about Gryffindor?"

"You wouldn't have told us if it was something that small," reasoned Anthony. "It's inconsistently unlikely."

"I'm pretty sure inconsistently doesn't work in a sentence like that," said Terry, frowning.

"So what really did happen?" asked Anthony quickly.

Terry sighed, but started talking again.

 _So Evens was forced to concede that Umbridge had been infected by a view point that was no longer her completely her own. Since we had already assured him that Umbridge was behind it, he agreed that he had to begin the crusade of stopping her. At this point, both Michael and I agreed that he'd be best off if he could convince his fellow Slytherins to fight back against the Hufflepuff terror."_

"So right now, there's a Slytherin in their common room telling them that Umbridge is behind the Slytherin killings?" asked Anthony slowly.

"Even though she's not," said Mandy Brocklehurst.

"And that no Slytherin has ever died in the school?" said Lisa.

"Correct," said Terry.

A titter of laughter rang from around the room. The whole situation was so absurd, so prosperous, that it boarded on the unbelievable.

Actually, knowing Terry, it _was_ unbelievable.

"So what really happened?" Lisa asked Michael, who looked relieved that someone had come to their senses.

"What, you don't believe me?" said Terry, voice rising in indignation.

"Can you blame me?" asked Lisa.

"When have I ever, _ever_ told a falsehood?" asked Terry, scratching his chin in a futile attempt to cover the smirk on his face.

"I think I can dimly remember a time or two, can't you?" Anthony asked Michael, rubbing his hand over the short bristles on top of his head.

"Let's see," said Michael. The room quickly picked up the cue.

"First year, when I asked you if you knew where the Transfiguration classroom was," said Mandy.

"Ok, but," started Terry.

"Second year, when I asked you if Lockhart was a good teacher or not," said Michael.

"You missed the class..."

"Third year, when you told the whole common room that you had found a secret passage," said Su.

"Well, only..."

"When you told the whole of Herbology class that I wanted to be called Mike," said Michael. "I _hate_ being called Mike."

"That was..."

"Fourth year, when you told us that you had a date to the Yule ball," said Anthony.

"I, well, the girl, She was, um," spluttered Terry.

"Precisely," said Padma, spoke up, shifting a little as everyone in the room looked at her, "or when you said that you said that helicopters were land based animals."

"Et tu, Padma?" said Terry, his face slightly red. He looked around the room, making eye contact with every person. "Alright, other than that, have I ever lied?"

"When you said that Anthony was the one who locked my trunk," said Michael.

"When you said the Dumbledore had called you up to his office to reward you for being an exceptional student," said Anthony.

"When I asked you whether you had seen my homework," said Su.

The list continued for quite a long time, even by Anthony's generous standards

"Alright, other than those two hundred times or so, can you ever remember me lying to you?" said Terry, at last. Halfway through the recitation, he had gotten tired of standing and was now sprawled across the armchair opposite Anthony. "Can you?"

Anthony and Michael looked at each other.

"Well," said Anthony.

"No," admitted Michael.

"So that proves that I must be trustworthy!" said Terry.

"Right, let's hear your side of the story Michael, and then we can have more things to say that Terry's lying about," said Anthony.

"Well, to tell the truth, it goes like this," said Michael, clapping his hands together.

" _You see, it started way before we met Edwards coming out of the great hall. It all started in the Divination room, where we were planning on getting Peeves to drive out the next class, which consisted of mostly Inquisitorial Squad members. We were going to drive them out into the Forbidden Forest, and then reform them by presenting them with unicorns, when we discovered something even better."_

Anthony resisted the urge to groan. Either Michael was seizing on the opportunity to seriously embellish his story, or else that had really been their plan. Anthony had didn't know which was worse.

 _We discovered Boozlebeeze powder a vase by the stump._

"What's Boozlebeeze powder?" asked Kevin. "I've never heard of it before."

"Really?" said Michael, stumped. "I thought that everyone knew about it. Terry, had, when I asked him."

"Are you serious?" asked Terry equally puzzled, looking around the room at the bemused faces. "You guys don't?"

"It's not in any of the books I've ever read," said Lisa, taking off her half-rim glasses as she started rooting around in her bag.

Anthony knew that this was his entire fault. His actions had led to Michael having full credence to tell the truth, and he was using for his own amusement.

"Well, it's a purple powder that can cloud the mind, leaving it completely open to suggestions," said Michael.

"It works even through the skin," said Terry, scratching his chin again, "hence why it was such a great find."

"Right," said Michael. "Now if I could continue the story?"

The frenzied whispers and flicking of pages stopped as Michael started to speak.

" _So, there wasn't much there, so we knew that we'd use it on just one person, and Edwards happened to walking past. So we talked him into the room, sat him down, and waited for the powder to take effect. Within moments, it was like he was dazed. So I asked him, as a test, whether he wanted to go for a quick walk in the forbidden forest, to see the unicorns."_

" _Well, the powder worked wonders, because he was already part way through the door when we caught up to him. We had just pulled him back into the room when who else but our esteemed headmistress herself barged into us. While Terry sat slacked-jawed, I used my silver tongue to get her into the room, concocting a devious scheme, spinning lies like tangled webs to entrap her. She fell for it, and within minutes, she had sat down on a chair coated with fresh Boozlebeeze powder."_

"You're joking," said Kevin. Most of the Ravenclaws in the common room were gazing at him in amazement, mouths open.

Anthony decided this had gone on long enough.

"Look, I know you lot are a bit short on sleep—"

"Too right. I haven't had a proper's night sleep since January," muttered Mandy.

"—but yes, he wasn't telling the truth. He's been around Terry too long, and I think it's starting to affect him."

"It's true," Terry told the crowd. "Now, if you want to know the truth, let me—"

"No, honestly, it would just be silly in the extreme for this to continue," said Anthony. "I'm not going to listen to anymore of this drivel."

"You see, it actually started during dinner..." started Terry, eyeing Anthony.

"I will throw this book at you," said Anthony, hefting his Transfiguration textbook. "And you know how I feel about throwing books."

"And we spotted Evens," said Terry, grinning as Anthony throw his book toward him; it missed him and smacked into the wall.

"That's right," piped up Michael, trying to hide his grin. "And—"

"And then you talked him into thinking that he was a giant potato whose mission was to eviscerate Umbridge?" said Anthony dryly.

"Exactly," said Michael, grinning at him. "That's loads better then what I had."

"And then he grew so big that the castle was squashed beneath him," said Terry, also grinning at Anthony.

Anthony couldn't help it. He grinned too. The two of them might be gits most of the time, but they weren't so bad, sometimes.


End file.
